NEEDLE-EXCHANGE PROGRAM HELD USEFUL IN FIGHTING AIDS, DRUGS

WASHINGTON - An experiment in providing free needles to drug addicts not
only reduced unsafe practices that transmit the AIDS virus but resulted in
more addicts seeking drug treatment, a health official involved in the
nation's first needle-exchange program said Tuesday.

"I can't emphasize enough the fact that nothing else works to reach these
people like the exchange program," said Holly Hagan, an epidemiologist for
the Tacoma-Piece County Health Department in Washington state, in testimony
before the House Government Operations subcommittee on human resources.

"We have observed statistically significant reductions in the mean
frequency of obtaining and injecting with used syringes, and in the rate of
passing on used syringes to other persons," she added. "Sterilization with
bleach has also increased."

Needle-exchange programs, which are operating in fewer than a half-dozen
U.S. cities, have met considerable opposition on the grounds that they
condone or promote illegal drug use.

But Hagan said that the Tacoma program, which began in January, 1989, has
neither caused an increase in illegal drug use nor encouraged individuals
to begin injecting drugs.

"The rate of injection of persons using the exchange has remained stable,"
Hagan said. "In fact, more persons decreased their drug injection than
increased it."

She said that participants in the program, who number 400 to 600 persons
each week, "have been injecting drugs for an average of 15 years."

Moreover, she called needle exchange "an effective bridge to drug
treatment," saying that more than 350 persons have entered drug treatment
programs through the efforts of an outreach program operated in conjunction
with the needle exchange.

"Sterile syringes bring them to us and there they are met by our highly
skilled outreach workers who they see every day at the exchanges," she
said. "Rapport is built, and then the exchange users begin to trust. That's
when we can recruit them into drug treatment and offer help for them to
redirect their lives."

She called the program "our community's model for public health strategies
designed to reach people whose illegal lifestyles put them at risk of
serious illness, but who are unable or unwilling to seek help."

Meanwhile, a report released Tuesday by the Office of Technology
Assessment, a nonpartisan analytical agency that serves Congress, said that
methadone treatment programs can reduce intravenous drug use "and the risky
behaviors" associated with HIV transmission, but that "methadone's
potential is not being realized."

The OTA report said that policies to control the AIDS epidemic "must
recognize" that only 10% to 20% of the estimated 1.1 to 1.8 million drug
users in this country are in treatment programs at any one time. The report
recommended that methadone and counseling be provided to intravenous heroin
addicts who are on treatment waiting lists.