As a retired sw from the hitrack in Vancouver (worked for 9 years, retired for 7), I find it sad that this type of attitude comes from fellow sex trade workers themselves. Now keep in mind, that I am not speaking about all sw's but only the sw's that I knew from hitrack. Of all the ladies that i knew, 6 are now deceased, and that is the number that I came up with without even putting any thought into it, and none of them were from drug overdoses or disease. They were all from bad dates. I know that myself and the ladies that I worked closely with had regular hiv and std checks done at the drake street clinic, and had all our hep shots up to date, and none of us would jeprodize anyone's health with unsafe practices. None of us were drug addict's (some may have dabbled from time to time), but there are obvious risks related to this industry, be it from sw's, sp's, mpa's and yes even from clients. Yes, you are more likely to be ripped off by a crack head sw, than a clean street walker, but I feel that could happen with anyone type of provider. There is a very long thread here on perb about an indy who was consistently ripping clients off, there is another (who shall remain nameless, but I will say is not a member of this board) who has many glowing reviews regarding her and her services, that I do know personally, who yes, has a serious substance abuse problem, and who does very unsafe acts (please do not pm me and ask me who, as I will not divulge her name). So to generalize and say that it is the sw's that are unsafe, don't get me wrong, I am sure some are, is unfair, as I feel that in every walk of this industry there are the bad apples. I feel that we should all have a mutual respect for all our working sisters, as we all fuck and suck for our money, and just because one stays inside, and one outside, does not, IMHO, make each better than the other. XO