JUDGE BARS ARREST OF DRUG USERS WITH UP TO 30 NEEDLES

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) _ A federal judge has issued a
ruling that prohibits the Bridgeport Police Department from stopping,
searching, arresting or threatening any person found in possession of
up to 30 clean or dirty hypodermic needles.

The 72-page decision issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall
also protects all "present and future" injecting drug users from
arrest for possessing either 30 or fewer sterile needles or those
containing drug residue.

Hall also interpreted and defined a state law that she said protects
all drug abusers from being arrested for possession of up to 30 needles.

Graham Boyd, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, which
filed the suit, said the ruling is an important victory.

"She defined the law for all police departments across the state,"
Boyd said.

The ACLU and Connecticut Civil Liberties Union filed the suit last
fall on behalf of two Bridgeport heroin abusers who participate in the
needle exchange program.

It accused Bridgeport police of violating state law by harassing and
threatening needle exchange program participants.

Associate City Attorney Barbara Brazzel-Massaro said the city is
disappointed by the ruling, which extends protection to all drug
abusers and not just card-carrying members of the city's needle
exchange program.

In 1992, the Legislature passed the law, permitting pharmacies to sell
up to 30 needles to people without a prescription. The law was
designed to reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV and
hepatitis by encouraging people to exchange dirty needles for clean
ones.

Boyd said the law has helped cut the spread of AIDS by about a third
in Connecticut.

But Brazzel-Massaro said the city would challenge the
ruling.

The city argued that the state law should not apply to people who
aren't participating in the needle-exchange program but are carrying
needles containing drug residue.

Hall concluded that "the Legislature, through its 1992 enactment,
decriminalized the possession of trace amounts of drugs contained as
residue within previously used syringes and needles by any injecting
drug user..."

The judge also said that "maintaining criminal liability for possession of
trace amounts of narcotic substances as residue within previously used
injection equipment would invite the Bridgeport police to abuse the Fourth
Amendment by arresting any injecting drug user."