According to epidemiologist Elizabeth Pisani, a bizarre type of “rationality” dictates our state and national policies regarding prevention of HIV. Her frank talk is both entertaining and filled with counter-intuitive facts. Listen to what she has to say about providing needles to addicts and then call your legislators. Well worth your while.
Tiedemann's Axiom on Sex: when it comes to sex, no one is rational.
Addiction is much like having another, separate psyche riding shotgun over your mind and overriding decision-making when it comes to your jones (whether it be smack or a jelly donut).
What people do, what they admit in private to doing, what they will admit in public to doing, and what they will allow others to declare are rarely the same things and until that changes, these weird, murderous paradigms will persist.
It would have been interesting to see her discuss the most underdiscussed element in all this, namely people who actively resist knowing anything and manage never to learn because they don't want to know, as if ignorance is some kind of prophylactic—which when it comes to their children they clearly seem to believe.