Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed needle-exchange legislation. While I would generally support this on public health rather than ideological grounds, the devil is in the details.

My casual read of the bill in question reveals there are no safeguards to ensure or at least encourage that those who get these needles are in fact already addicts and that the needles are only for their personal use. Because of that, expect a (brisker) black market for needles as non-addicts acquire needles to be sold to addicts who can't get enough.

The bill also makes it a crime to dispose of a needle at places like public playgrounds. Great idea. Now, we just need to station cops in sandboxes at public playgrounds throughout the state.

A better idea would have provided some form of deposit like soda cans. That would have encouraged addicts to dispose of their needles by bringing them into a pharmacy. Pharmacies (I'd imagine) already have bio-hazard boxes that could be used.

And, the other downside is this:

the signing marked a personal triumph for the termed-out Vasconcellos, who had steered two other versions of the measure through the Legislature only to have it rejected by Davis, who had agreed with opponents' concerns.

Any personal triumph for that fine legislator is in some ways a defeat for everyone else. In addition to authoring the racially-subtexted bill to give partial votes to teenies, he also said this: "Since [the U.S.] stole [the southwestern U.S.] from [Mexico], why do you say it's unfair to steal [the southwestern U.S.] back from us?".