INTO THE LIGHT ON NEEDLE EXCHANGE?

There was excitement in Roseanne Scotti's voice. "The Senate Health
Committee approved the needle bill," she said on the phone. "It took
them all day, and it was wild. For a while, things looked bad. But
they voted it out."

Her elation was easy to understand. As director of the Drug Policy
Alliance of New Jersey, Scotti is one of a handful of advocates who
have toiled year after year to push the "needle bill" through the
Legislature. Last Monday, the Health Committee, the bill's perennial
executioner, approved a compromise version with the five votes needed
to put it in position for a first-ever vote by the full Senate.

The proposed law, S-494, would authorize pilot programs in six New
Jersey municipalities for the legal distribution of clean needles to
intravenous drug users, with drug-treatment outreach and counseling a
part of the package. If enacted, it will help check the spread of
HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and other diseases that are transmitted by
infected syringes.

It also will end New Jersey's dismal distinction of being the only
state that allows addicts no access to clean syringes, either through
controlled exchange programs or over-the-counter sale by pharmacies.
Delaware, the lone other holdout, approved a pilot needle-exchange
project for the city of Wilmington two months ago.

At the end of Monday's sometimes contentious marathon session, the
Senate committee tabled a companion bill to allow the nonprescription
sale of up to 10 syringes after it could muster only four votes.
Forty-six other states permit such sales.

"It was 8 o'clock," explained Sen. Joe Vitale, D-Woodbridge, the
committee chairman. "Just as pilots shouldn't fly a plane after
flying for 12 hours, we shouldn't do bills after thinking for that
long a time. There was a lot of burnout in the committee, and we
wanted to be thoughtful about it.

"We'll take up (that bill) the next time we meet."

That New Jersey, which we here like to think of as enlightened and
progressive, trails the rest of the country in this initiative is
shocking -- and has led to statistics that are as sad as they are
predictable. We have the fifth highest number of adult HIV cases in
the nation. Forty-five percent of our AIDS virus caseload comes from
shared drug syringes, compared with about 20 percent in other states.

We have the highest proportion of HIV infections among women, with
nearly 80 percent of those cases involving women of color. AIDS and
other HIV-related illnesses are the leading cause of death for New
Jersey women between ages 15 and 44. We rank third in pediatric HIV cases.

Besides the human suffering involved, all this preventable sickness
costs us taxpayers millions of dollars in Medicaid payments or
reimbursements to hospitals for charity care.

It's not as if the case for access to sterile needles isn't solid.
The public-health community is close to united in its certainty,
based on extensive studies, that access reduces the spread of
HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C and doesn't lead to greater drug use.

No doubt some opponents quietly believe that junkies deserve whatever
punishment fate deals them. But how about their sexual partners and
their unborn children, to whom they pass their disease? To be
dismissive of this collateral damage is uniquely heartless.

Advocates have been working for 13 years to get clean-needle programs
legalized in New Jersey. Former Gov. Christie Whitman stubbornly
opposed them with the mindless slogan that they would "send the wrong
message" about drug addiction.

Unyielding foes on the Senate Health Committee include U.S. Senate
candidate Tom Kean Jr., R-Westfield, and state Sen. Ron Rice,
D-Newark, who portrays needle exchange as a calculated assault on
poor and minority neighborhoods. This time, however, the opponents
were unable to bury the bill.

Although its final passage isn't assured -- Sen. Vitale says he won't
ask for a floor vote until he can count the 21 ayes that are needed
-- the Health Committee's positive action suggests that the stars are
more favorably aligned than ever before. Gov. Jon Corzine has called
the state's failure to allow access to clean needles
"unconscionable." Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts, D-Brooklawn, educated
himself on the value of needle exchange and nonprescription sales and
pushed the bills through the Assembly in the last session. He says
he's ready to do it again when the Senate acts.

And Senate President Dick Codey, D-West Orange, who has given needle
exchange only verbal support in the past, is applying real muscle
this time. He paid a personal visit to the Health Committee last week
to help break the deadlock there. "When Codey arrived, it was as if
the seas parted," Roseanne Scotti said.

Under Sen. Vitale's leadership, the committee adopted the amendments
necessary to get it through. Initial coverage was changed from the
entire state to six demonstration towns. (There should be no shortage
of applicants, with Atlantic City and Camden at the head of the line.
In both cities, hard hit by the AIDS epidemic, desperate municipal
officials created their own needle-exchange programs two years ago,
only to be rebuffed by the courts.) After four years, the state
health commissioner will review the pilot projects' effectiveness and
report to the Legislature. And $10 million was included for inpatient
and outpatient drug treatment, a vital part of the state's battle
against infectious disease.

Lawmakers now have the opportunity to do something very important for
the simple reason that it's right. No powerful interest groups are
lobbying for these bills. The people who would benefit from them are
powerless and vulnerable. They don't vote, they aren't organized and
they don't give money to political campaigns. All that is at stake is
their lives.

Let's hope the Legislature rises to the occasion.