Robert Wexler: “if I thought for one minute that a drug exchange, needle exchange program for drug addicts would increase the likelihood…”

“if I thought for one minute that a drug exchange, needle exchange program for drug addicts would increase the likelihood of teenagers in America using drugs, I would not support it. But common sense dictates that there will not be a single 16-year-old teenager in America who says, oh, now I can go get a needle exchange, rather than going to the corner drugstore and buy one for five cents or ten cents, and now I am going to get addicted to heroin and ha, ha, ha. Having nothing to do with common sense, it tells us the way in which we prevent people from getting AIDS, the way in which we prevent people from spreading AIDS to people who are innocent is to make certain the needles they are using are clean. The question is not whether we are for or against drug abuse. We are all against it. The question is simple. Should drug addicts be using clean needles or should they be using AIDS-infected needles? And the taxpayers of America are better off if the needles are clean rather than AIDS infected, and all Americans who do not use drugs are better off if we make certain that those who do are not infected with AIDS needles.”