I should also mention I've been a police officer for the last 4 years, so I've seen the reality of drug use from both a public health and a public safety aspect...and enabling drug users isn't exactly great for either.

I see on VOCAL-NY's website one of their listed accomplishments is expanding drug users' access to syringes. As a holder of a B.S. in Public Health, I can't say I'm surprised that this would be considered an accomplishment by a group such as this. "Public Health" is all too often an oxymoron at this point in humanity's history.

Its refreshing to read an objective essay on the hypocrisy of big government and in this case big state programs. Perhaps this is what was at one time referred to as Journalism

The sheer ignorance on display in the comments is antithetical to the approach of The Manhattan Institute. Hymowitz rightly asks for legislators to consider priorities by looking INSIDE the current process instead of the headline. The new AIDS advocacy may ignore basic math and principles of science, but the arguments below demonstrate it can't be better handled by conservatives. Simply believing that something is true does not make it true. Offering-up cliche as proof of your position undermines any attempt at thoughtful debate. The chances that care in NY will diminish significantly are zero. If there's a smidgen of intellectual curiosity among you, consider why the vast majority of new patients are no longer "white, gay men" instead of pushing indefensible morality. It's not even an attempt at solution.

It's only momentarily freeing to engage in this way. Because you hate political correctness I know that no offense is taken:

GRID? Really?! That's as inaccurate a view as saying the world is flat. Please join the 21st Century (or, at least, the 1980s). Staying in the previous one only makes you irrelevant as a human.

So many Americans are fat and gross. Time to eliminate this disgusting plague of people by denying them health care.

I don't know when AIDS-related illnesses stopped being fatal.

Close to 60% HIV infections are from sodomy.
When will the homosexual community own up to this reality?

City Council President Quinn has to learn to say NO! She wants to be the next Mayor. Saying No! is part of the job description.

Perfect example of emotional decision making rather than rational thought.

If we let Aid suffers go of their fate for their actions, one would not see growth of this segment nor the radicalization of it.

Disgusting!

Sharon in Canada: I am sure we'll have people pushing us to do that. Has the safe house/methadone had any effect on lowering use of heroin, or crime?

Today, close to 80 percent of new patients are black and Hispanic, most of them low-income,

If risky behavior is more prevalant in these groups, that it is these groups that must be addressed, firmly and unequivocally.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

If sinners such as these would only convert wholeheartedly to following Christ in the Catholic Church, pray the Rosary, and pray especially the St. Michael chaplet daily, they might yet see the Hand of God come to cure them. Instead, despairing and hopeless, they impose upon the more disciplined populace their petulant commandment to rationalize their perversions and support them in their profligate contempt for the natural order.

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disclose their HIV status. Disclosing to someone that's HIV- is a terrifying task and finding someone else with HIV.

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Unfortunately, 'advocacy' in the US has turned into a money-intensive industry, which manufactures politically correct coercion on a massive scale to endlessly perpetuate a self-serving agenda, which will continue to proliferate as increasingly under-educated and life-skills-challenged younger generations descend into 'special interest group' mania.

Since the vast majority of GRIDS/AIDS cases are contracted by engaging in voluntary activity, (the disease does not get transmitted by things like mosquito bites or contaminated water) WHY oh why do those who contract the malady in result of their own free-will decisions now EXPECT their fellow citizens of New York to support them? Seems the long-suffering and overly generous (despite the fact their money is taken at the point of a gun) people of New York should be protestinng in the streets against having to pay so much to support these people. Little sympathy for those with the disease, and ABSOLUTELY NONE for their "adult dependents". Whoever decided to support THEM needs their head examined. Talk about marxist coercive wealth redistribution........

New York has not reached the stage that we here in Canada have, not yet. Here we provide so-called "safe" houses (safe for the users, but not for the people in the community) and the methadone, too, for drug addicts to inject themselves with. Drug-addict advocates have now moved on to demanding that taxpayers "manage our addict problem" by handing our free heroin, too. So as bad as it is in NY count yourselves lucky that you are not the taxpayers in Canada.

way to go Kay

As an-ex New Yorker, I know that political correctness has gone over the cliff in that city.
Illegal drug users and promiscuous gays all know the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. Yet, they continue to engage in dangerous, high-risk behaviors with strangers. And now, they want taxpayers to pay for the resultant, medical expenses for disease? Why should we?
I don't care if they are angry about contracting the disease. They did it to themselves. Their lifestyle is irresponsible and they should not be able to bill others for the consequences.

Since it is no longer fatal, and since the new label is "people living with AIDS", why does it remain the royalty of subsidized diseases?

Jason,
If you're suggesting taxing churches and other religious organizations I'm totally with you

So do any of these advocacy groups pay taxes? If not, why not?