EDITORIAL - Protection from AIDS, inducement for drugs

Two wrongs never make anything right. When you give away free syringes to drug users so that they may not contract AIDS, you may help them not contract AIDS but you drive them deeper into drug abuse. Worse, you may even encourage non-drug users to get into the habit. The irony is that it is the government itself, through the Department of Health, that is behind this stupidity.

Whoever in the DOH was behind this crazy idea should be sent to Indonesia. This program is the exact opposite of another DOH program in which smokers are being scared not just by government warnings on cigarette packs but by graphic images of cancer that victims contracted through smoking. Instead of using a similar scare tactic involving AIDS as a consequence of drug use, the DOH is doing the opposite.

So what gives? Why is the DOH discriminating against the gander? Why is the DOH scaring the smokers but not scaring the drug users? Are there addicts inside the DOH itself? AIDS may not have a cure, but it is a far lesser problem than drug abuse. Drug abuse is today the single most destructive and pervasive force wreaking havoc in society.

How many AIDS victims are there in the Philippines? The DOH probably does not have the figures. If it did, it probably would not have embarked on this stupid program. And probably because it does not have the correct figures, its ignorance is scaring it s...less, hence its panicky knee-jerk reaction. When a vital agency of government such as the DOH starts developing tunnel vision and starts mistaking the trees for the forest, then we are indeed in deep manure.

AIDS will eventually have a cure. Given the kind of research going into the problem, it will not be long before a cure is found. In fact, there are already very successful prototypes of potential cures being tested. And even if there were none, AIDS by itself does not pose a problem as harmful and as consuming as drugs. Drugs abuse does not only kill or craze users, it also cultivates criminals, promotes violence, and shakes up economies. AIDS does nothing of the sort.

And that is why it becomes a very terribly shameful indictment of the DOH for it to get so scared about AIDS as to actually do something as crazy as this free syringes for drug addicts program. What on earth was the DOH thinking? How can it get so confused about the problems it has to deal with? How can it get so illogical? And how can it get so destructive?

Perhaps there is a need to give the DOH a real shakeup, a complete overhaul. Of late it has been acting rather confused. Remember that Ebola scare the country experienced not too long ago, when Filipino peacekeeping troops had to be quarantined on an island to keep the rest of the country safe? And did you remember the DOH secretary going on a picnic to that island with the equally clueless AFP chief in tow? Well, if this is our DOH, Filipinos will all soon go mad or drop dead.