性传播疾病的预防：行为的改变
STD Prevention: Behavior Change

节欲-戒毒？

从公共卫生的观点看，戒烟和禁毒是人们追求的目标。可是，全世界千百万的烟民和无数的吸毒者耽溺于烟碱和海洛因，不能达到人们期望禁绝的目标。事实上，一些人确实自动设法戒烟和停止吸食其他毒品，但是这种例外的事例只能证明一个铁律：把告戒人们禁毒作为一个普遍的预防策略是无效的。 

面对这种现实，许多卫生健康专家于是建议，在静脉毒品注射者需要的时候，给他们发放免费注射针头，不失为预防HIV感染的最好的办法。足量发放消毒针头能够减少非常危险的“共用针头”。这些策略已经在一些地方被运用和获得了成功，足以证明卫生专家判断的正确性。

Abstinence - Abstinence from Drug Use?

From the standpoint of public health, it would be desirable that people abstain from smoking and injecting drugs. However, millions of smokers all over the world and countless thousands if intravenous drug users are addicted to nicotine or heroin and thus are incapable of the desired abstinence. It is true that some individuals do manage to stop smoking and give up other drugs on their own, but these exceptions only prove the rule: As a general prevention strategy, preaching abstinence to drug users is ineffective.

Facing this reality, many health experts therefore recommend that intravenous drug users be given free injection needles on demand as the best way to protect them against HIV infection. Clean needles in sufficient quantities can reduce the very dangerous “needle sharing”. Where these policies have been implemented, they have proved successful enough to justify their continuation.