AIDS ACTIVISTS SAY NEEDLE LAW ADDS TO RISKS IN NEW JERSEY

HACKENSACK, N.J. AIDS activists say New Jersey's refusal to allow the
legal distribution of hypodermic needles allows the further spread of HIV
among drug users, their sex partners and children.

Throughout the Northeast, including in New York State, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, Maine and Connecticut, regulations on needle distribution are
easing in an effort to slow the spread of the disease.

Former Gov. Christie Whitman strongly opposed over-the-counter needle
programs in New Jersey, saying giving drug addicts access to needles would
send a message that the government condones drug use.

Two-thirds of the state's 40,000 AIDS cases have been traced to
contaminated needles.

"New Jersey has done nothing to stop the HIV epidemic" among drug users,
said Glenn Backes of the Lindesmith Center-Drug Policy Foundation, a
national group that advocates the reform of drug laws.

"It has done nothing except watch an incredible number of people get sick
and die for no reason," Backes told The Sunday Record of Bergen County.

Needle-exchange advocates say they are hopeful that after a new governor is
chosen in November, they will have a better chance at seeing legislation pass.

The American Medical Association, the National Institutes of Health, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Institute for Medicine
all endorse needle programs. More than 150 such programs operate in more
than 30 states, but only half are legal, according to a 1997 survey.

State lawmakers who have opposed such programs in the past say they will
take a second look.

"I am not going to close my mind to looking at good data," said state Sen.
Gerald Cardinale, R-Bergen.

State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Woodbridge, has sponsored needle-exchange bills
in the past and said he hasn't given up hope that one would be enacted.

"Those who oppose it are hung up on some sort of message," he said. "I
don't know what that means when at the end of the day hundreds of people,
mostly women and unborn children, are infected with HIV."