SANDERS HOPES TO RESTART NEEDLE PROGRAM

City Would Offer Clean Syringes To Drug Users

A needle exchange program that Mayor Jerry Sanders said helps combat
the spread of AIDS and hepatitis could soon resume in San Diego.

Sanders said yesterday he believes he has the five votes needed from
the City Council to restart the program, which was shut down last
July after Councilmen Michael Zucchet and Ralph Inzunza resigned.
Both had supported the effort, which started in 2002.

A council vote on Sanders' proposal is scheduled for Tuesday.

Alliance Healthcare Foundation, a nonprofit organization, plans to
give $386,400 to pay for the supplies and staffing for the program
for the next two years.

Under the program, intravenous drug users can exchange used needles
for clean ones and get referrals to counseling and other services.
Community members who find needles will have a place to drop them off.

"The pilot program was discontinued because the six votes that were
needed to sustain the ongoing state of emergency were no longer in
place," Sanders said at a news conference outside City Hall. "Now,
with a full eight-member council and a new state law in place that
removes the need for a continuing state of emergency to keep the
program running, I believe the time has come to resume this vital
public health service."

In the past, Council President Scott Peters and council members Tony
Young, Donna Frye and Toni Atkins have supported the program.
Councilmen Brian Maienschein and Jim Madaffer - and former Mayor Dick
Murphy - opposed it.

Two new councilmen - Ben Hueso and Kevin Faulconer - have not yet
taken an official stand on the issue, but a mayoral spokesman said he
believed Hueso would back the program at next week's vote.

The needle-exchange program was first approved in November 2001. Over
a three-year period, it took in about 350,000 dirty needles that
otherwise might have been dumped in trash containers and drains, and
handed out 285,000 clean syringes, officials said.

After Zucchet and Inzunza resigned, the program ended because the
council did not have enough votes to declare the continued state of
emergency that was required to operate the program, a declaration
that took place every two weeks.

The program, which operates out of a converted RV, had been
authorized in the East Village near police headquarters and in North Park.

Atkins said she is looking at a potential second site in her district
where the needle-exchange van could operate. She said the program
tries to save people's lives.

"The communities overall actually support this," she said. Finding a
site "is a little bit of an issue, but in general I think people do
believe it works, and they trust what they see in terms of the
statistics and the resources that people are actually given."