THE BLIND OBJECTIONS TO NEEDLE EXCHANGES

Luz Espinosa is not the sort of woman who figures large in the
calculations of Trenton politicians.

She's lived most of her adult life as a prostitute in Newark,
addicted to heroin, sleeping in abandoned buildings and vacant lots.
She has AIDS, and it's almost killed her over and over.

There aren't many votes to be had in her demographic group. But it
would be nice if the politicians in Trenton invited her to testify someday.

Then they might realize how much damage they are doing by re fusing
to allow addicts in New Jersey to get clean needles. The political
stalemate over this issue has deadly consequences.

"Needles are really scarce in the projects and all over Newark," Es
pinosa says. "It costs $5 to get one, and when you only have money
for the drugs, people use any syringe they can. They pick them up off
the railroad tracks. I've seen it."

The mystery is why we allow this to happen.

The nation's first needle-ex change clinic opened nearly 20 years
ago, in Tacoma, Washington.

In those days, the idea was strange and new. Some worried that it
would encourage drug use. Others said it wouldn't help much because
addicts wouldn't stick with the program. To oppose it back then was reasonable.

But this isn't a theoretical debate anymore. These clinics are up and
running all over the country, and the results are in.

"There's an overwhelming stack of evidence now that says you're
foolish not to do this," says Dr. Robert Johnson, who served on a
state task force studying the issue. "Every bit of research shows
that it reduces the spread of HIV and doesn't encourage drug use."

That's the same conclusion reached at the Centers for Disease
Control, the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy
of Sciences -- along with nearly every recognized national voice on
public health issues.

But politicians in New Jersey haven't paid much attention. They float
by, oblivious, as this virus continues to claim fresh victims.

Sen. Ronald Rice is the main roadblock today. A Democrat from Newark,
he sees needle-exchange programs as an "anti-black" conspiracy that
will encourage more drug use, and promises to bring busloads of
protesters to Trenton if the Legislature approves one.

Rice is almost incoherent when you ask him to back up his view, in
light of all the studies that contradict it. But he is at least sincere.

Other senators are folding for political reasons, as if this were a
line item in the budget and not a matter of life and death.

Sen. Robert Singer, a Republican from Ocean County, once sponsored a
bill to allow pharmacists to sell needles without a prescription. But
when he was criticized by his county prosecutor as being soft on
drugs, he reversed himself.

"I changed my mind," he says. "I really got pummeled on that."

And so a bill to establish pilot programs in three cities, passed by
the Assembly last year, remains stuck in the Senate's health committee.

Senate President Richard Codey has the power to end-run Rice by
assigning it to another committee or taking it directly to the Senate
floor. But while that's done frequently in Washington, Codey says it
would be considered rude in Trenton.

"That's a slap in the face to the committee members," he says.

Espinosa is 42, but she looks closer to 60, thanks to her missing
teeth, her scars and her shaky step.

Her message to politicians is this: Addicts are beyond reckless, and
they need help to avoid this virus.

One day, years ago, Espinosa spotted a dirty needle on the cellar
steps behind an abandoned house. She picked it up, rinsed it with
water and used it.

"It still had a little blood on it, but I didn't care," she says.
"When a junkie needs a fix, he's going to use any needle he can."