POLITICS AND NEEDLE EXCHANGES

Needle exchange programs save lives. They slow the spread of H.I.V.,
the virus that causes AIDS, and they help get addicts into treatment.
Yet when it comes to supporting these programs, it seems that the
political cowardice never ends.

For the last 20 years, Congress has blocked the use of federal money
to pay for needle exchange programs in the United States or abroad.
For 10 years, Congress banned Washington from using tax dollars raised
in the District of Columbia to pay for needle exchange efforts.

Congress finally lifted Washington's ban in December, stripping that
provision in the federal budget that President Bush had signed. The
District of Columbia has now allocated $650,000 that will, among other
things, pay to open a clinic that combines needle exchanges with
H.I.V. testing. In what would be an unconscionable reversal, President
Bush's new budget request would reimpose that ban.

Needle exchange programs have proved highly successful around the
world, and the country's most important medical and public health
organizations have endorsed the efforts for more than a decade.
Opponents' claims that needle exchanges would encourage addiction have
turned out to be nonsense.

The nation's capital has the country's highest rate of H.I.V.
infection, and a recent report by the District of Columbia's health
department found that more than 20 percent of the city's AIDS cases
could be traced to intravenous drug users. Now that Washington has a
chance to fight back, the White House must not be allowed to hobble
that effort.

Congress must insist that Washington be allowed to spend its own money
on needle exchange programs. And it must begin passing budgets that
allow states -- and health organizations overseas -- to use federal
dollars for these life-saving programs.