Public nuisance

Of course, I neglected to mention earlier the most hideous cost of leaving drug users to share needles: they form a solid reservoir of nasty diseases that they pretty regularly pass out into the non-drug-using population. This is one of those public health measures that actually does help protect the general public from other people.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2007/12/public-nuisance/2397/