I just finished writing my blog entry about a middle school handing out contraceptives to 11-year-olds. And now I’m writing about another equally ridiculous program being considered in San Francisco.

On Thursday, October 18, the San Francisco public health department co-sponsored a symposium about a site in Vancouver where 700 users a day inject narcotics under the supervision of a nurse. They want to setup a similar facility in their city to reduce deaths caused by drug overdoses. Granted, this was only a symposium, they’re only talking about it right now. And even if they were to decide to create such a facility, it would take years to do. But this is not the solution.

Their reasoning is that when an addict overdoses, they frequently die. But if they overdose under the supervision of a licensed nurse, their life can be saved. That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard! Like the story about giving contraceptives to children, this policy says simply that we’re giving up on the problem. We’re giving up on the people who have the problem. We’re going to allow them to do it, even though it’s illegal (not to mention all the other reasons that you shouldn’t inject illegal drugs).

In addition to reading about this story on several of my usual internet news sources, I saw the story on CNN. The CNN story ended with an interview of a nurse at such a facility. She said, “we’ve had 80 overdoses today and no one died.” That’s her reasoning? That’s a good thing? That there were 80 overdoses? These people need help. They need counseling and treatment. They don’t need a facility that makes it easier to do harmful things to themselves.

No such facility exists in the United States today. We need to keep it that way.