WRONG VEIN

Needle exchanges provide addicts with clean equipment to poison their
bodies; spread of HIV and hepatitis C caused by sharing infected needles is
supposedly reduced.

It's a fact-of-life argument. Addicts will be addicts, and so engaging them
in a trusting relationship based on the first contact of a needle exchange
offers some hope that they may become amenable to treatment; one prays the
chemically damned are amenable and treatment is effective.

The Allegheny County Health Department is considering an official needle
exchange because of a spike in AIDS cases among drug users. The
semi-underground Prevention Point Pittsburgh illegally performs the service
with private funds.

Is there science proving needle exchange prevents disease and does not
socialize drug use by setting up new avenues of demand and supply?
Supporters say it is overwhelming.

We remind that drawing valid conclusions about needle use from the
underside is problematic where credibility long ago perished. How do we get
a handle on behavior as intimate and clandestine as needle use and sharing?
A researcher cannot impose sufficient scientific "controls" on such an
environment so that useful medical protocols are produced.

The Statistical Assessment Service, a nonprofit group that examines popular
"science" in the public interest, points out that needle exchanges "are
usually embedded in complex programs of outreach, education and treatment
... ."

Citing a 1996 study conducted in Chicago, the service reported that
outreach and education without a needle exchange that lends legitimacy to
abuse led to a 71 percent decline in the incidence of HIV among intravenous
drug users.

That is the difference between truth and fantasy.