Free Condoms!
Sorry, but sometimes the post titles just write themselves:
In a quest to quell HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, city health officials have quietly flooded the five boroughs with free condoms.They gave away 5.8 million in 2004 and a staggering 12.2 million last year, The [New York] Post has learned.
Last spring, Scott Kellerman, the Health Department’s Assistant Commissioner responsible for coordinating HIV/AIDS services, told The Post that the department must “cover this city in latex.”
…
Previously, officials gave condoms only to clinics that handle sexually transmitted diseases. “It wasn’t readily open to other groups. Now, youth centers, senior centers, private hospitals, commercial sex venues and many other facilities can order,” Dr. Isaac Weisfuse, the deputy commissioner told The Post.
Do we really need to spend more than ten seconds to determine whether condoms are a public good that should be underwritten by taxpayers?
Furthermore, there are no (direct) negative externalities to unprotected sex*. And the indirect negative externalities (i.e., health care for the infected) only exist because of our semi-socialist health care system in the first place. A program like this is merely throwing good money after bad (or bad money after worse).
And even if some argument for free condoms could be made: 12.2 million in a single year? For a city with a population of 8 million, less than 80% of whom are over 14, and only a fraction of that fraction are sexually active with multiple partners, and only a fraction of that fraction of that fraction can’t afford condoms.
Wherever the line is between defensible public health policy and the Politics of the Warm Fuzzy Feeling may be, this “cover the city in latex” mania is far past it.
And as for those who have unprotected sex, regardless of whether they can’t afford condoms or because they simply can’t think rationally:
You’ll go to a bar and spend $6 for a beer. You’ll pay a $15 cover charge to get into a dance club. You’ll pay $25 for a hit of meth. You’ll pay $100 for sex with a prostitute. But you won’t pay 25 cents for a condom?
Sorry, but sympathy is a scarce good that needs to be rationed. And you’re at the absolute back of the line.
(*In terms of sexually transmitted disease. Unintended pregnancy is another matter.)
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I agree with all your points except one: Your comparison to spending on drinks, bars and meth lacks one major difference when compared to condoms. With the former, one is paying for pleasure (or the chance of it). In the case of condoms, the perception is that condoms bring about LESS pleasure, and therefore isn't worth the rubber it's made from.
Of course such people think differently from sane folk like us, but I simply find that not having to worry about something is more pleasurable than having to worry about something.
But that's just me.
"there are no (direct) negative externalities to unprotected sex"
Like you, I have trouble believing the purchase price of a condom is an important cause of unprotected sex, but I'm pretty sure that infectious diseases, regardles of how they spread, have externalities.
Simplifying reality quite a bit, my chance of catching a particular STD depends on (1) how many times I have unprotected sex and on (2) the probablity that my partner is infected. For any given strategy for selecting sexual partners, factor 1 is in my control, but factor 2 is not, yet factor 2 is itself a consequence of everyone else's factor 1 decisions. I'm fairly sure that means there are externalities to the decision, and they're negative ones.
WP: Not to third parties, no. There are no externalities in the absence of socialized health care.
08 29 06
I used to be all for these types of programmes, until I realized that I could not change anyone's personal decisions. A dumbass will do stupid things regardless of their rationality. The most ironic situation ever was when I hooked up with some Aids activists via this course I was taking. One man has spent most of his adult life pushing safe sex and preaching about the dangers of AIDS. In the midst of his sermons he slipped in judgement, went out to a club did a couple of lines and got infected with HIV-while he was a pro condom activist. No…I think passing out free condoms is a useless enterprise. Folks who use them will likely have their own anyway.
08 29 06
Besides that, I think that the taxpayer funded free condoms reeks of a Nanny state!