I just read of an amazing drug that, if administered timely and correctly, can prevent drug addicts from overdosing on heroin. The drug is called Narcan, and it comes in the form of an easy-to-use nasal spray. According to a report on National Public Radio, naxolone, or Narcan, "blocks the brain receptors that heroin activates, instantly reversing an overdose." Drug programs include this drug in kits that cost $9.50 and make those kits, as well as education on how to use them, available for drug addicts. Doctors and emergency medical technicians have been using naxolone for years. Now it's available in a kit for the people who are on the scene at the moment of a drug overdose.
However, a Bush administration official, Dr. Bertha Madras, deputy director of the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy, doesn't think that these kits should be available to the public or drug overdose rescue operations. Why? Because, she says, "Narcan kits may actually encourage drug abusers to keep using heroin because they know overdosing isn't as likely."
What's up with people who think like this? These are the same people who think teenagers shouldn't have access to birth control because the teens will be more encouraged to have sex or that girls shouldn't receive the vaccine for human papillomavirus because more girls might then be encouraged to be sexually active with the fear of this disease (and its consequences, such as cervical cancer) removed.
People who engage in risky behavior aren't calculating those risks. They're caught up in the demands of the drug addiction or the forceful tug of their hormones or the siren song of love and desire.
There's a nasty undercurrent of sadism in these puritanical types who obviously think people should not escape punishment for poor decisions. It's really scary, however, when these types of folks are in positions of authority and run our government programs. Who do they think they are? God?
Other posts on this topic:
Kevin Drum, Washington Monthly
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