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Should congress use federal funds for drug needles?

The Harm Reduction Coalition wants the federal government to change its view of illegal drug use and fund needle exchange programs. The claim is that government funded needle exchanges would reduce the number of new AIDS infections.

The president and congress have resisted federal funding for needle exchange programs. The reasoning is that such programs are not consistent with the goal of reducing illegal drug use.

From the Cybercast News Service:

(CNSNews.com) - The federal government should change its view of illegal drug use and fund needle exchange programs that could help reduce new cases of HIV infection from dirty syringes, according to a group that advocates for drug addicts.

"The AIDS epidemic will continue to spread unless government leaders on all level [sic] - local, state, federal and international - embrace and support syringe exchange," according to the Harm Reduction Coalition (HRC).

...

The HRC called on Congress and the Bush administration to use the 19th annual World AIDS Day, observed Dec. 1, to free up federal funds for syringe exchange and promote the programs internationally.
...

 Allen Clear, executive director of the HRC, said an ideal exchange program would take "a used and potentially contaminated syringe from a drug user and [replace] it with at least one sterile syringe but hopefully as many as the drug user needs to keep themselves safe."
...

Clear, a native of southern England, added that while many local governments and private charities already support needle exchanges, it's important for the federal government to fund them because "it's up to the federal government to provide as much health care as possible for its citizens."

Since when is it up to the federal government to provide health care for its citizens? And who is a citizen of some foreign government to decide what our federal government should do?

Where is it found in the U.S. constitution that the federal government must provide health care of any kind to its citizens? Nowhere in the text of any of the articles of the constitution, nor in any of the amendments to the constitution is health care even mentioned.

The constitution of the United States strictly limits what powers are granted to the federal government. What is not expressly permitted to the federal government by the constitution is not authorized. Those powers are instead reserved to the states and to the people.

Both sides in this argument ignore the most important issue of all. The federal government has no business funding social programs of this nature. Neither does it have the authority to do so. Nowhere in the constitution is congress granted the authority to appropriate funds for social work.

Linked at Basil's Blog.

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