Don’t Needle Exchange Programs encourage drug use?
Researchers Marx and Strathdee studied the association between adolescent exposure to and understanding of needle exchange programs and their perceptions of the impact of NEPs on the decisions to use illicit drugs. The Baltimore adolescents believed the following factors promoted drug use: peer drug use 49.9%; parental drug use 43.5%; seeing drug users attend NEP 11.1%; school drug education 6.6%; and anti-drug TV advertisements 6.1%. The percentage believing that the above mentioned factors had no influence on illicit drug use was : seeing drug users attend NEP 42.4%; school based drug education 36.9%; anti-drug TV ads 29.8%; peer drug use 21.7%; and parental drug use 19.1%, (Marx and Strathdee, 2001) Studies have proven that harm reduction interventions do not: increase drug use; negatively impact upon drug treatment; and do not increase rates of injecting equipment (such as needles or syringes) in the streets Watters et al evaluated all-voluntary syringe exchange programs in San Fra
