SAFE NEEDLES ARE BEST WAY TO PREVENT HIV CASES

So you figure there's a whole bunch of people sitting at
home right now saying, "Gee, I've always wanted to try shooting
heroin. If I could only get my hands on a needle, I'd give it a
whirl." Neither do we.

Yet that's the most oft-heard argument from critics of needle-exchange
programs like the one being started in Marathon County: Making clean
syringes available to the public somehow encourages people to start using
intravenous drugs.

It's patently silly. As Everest Metro Police Detective Capt. Scott
Sleeter aptly summarized, "If a person's going to use, they're going
to use." And if they're going to use, we might as well make using as
safe as possible - for the drug addicts, for family members or
partners who risk being infected by the addicts and for the rest of
society, which is who most frequently pays to treat drug users when
they are infected with AIDS or other diseases.

It's not as though this is a new strategy for combating a problem that
has persisted for decades, despite many educational and other efforts.
Wausau is the 11th city in the state with such a program.

It is estimated that about 15 percent of AIDS cases known to Wisconsin
health officials since 1982 occurred in intravenous drug users, or
IDUs. AIDS isn't the only concern; up to 90 percent of all IDUs are
infected with hepatitis C, and both hepatitis B and C are transmitted
by shared needles.

And many users share needles for a variety of reasons. In most states,
it's illegal to possess drug paraphernalia, including syringes. Many
states require prescriptions to buy needles. So, because they're hard
to come by and illegal to carry, many users share.

Using sterile needles is the only sure way to avoid disease
transmission and efforts to encourage sterilization - all that's
needed is chlorine bleach - have had some success; almost half of all
IDUs now report cleaning their shared needles before use.

But that means half aren't. As a CDC report concluded: "For active
IDUs who will not or cannot stop injecting drugs, there are only three
reliable methods of preventing HIV infection from injection drug use:
1) use a sterile syringe for each injection; 2) if you cannot use a
sterile syringe for each injection, do not share syringes; and 3) if
you do share syringes, disinfect with bleach. However, many IDUs do
continue to share, at least occasionally, and recent guidelines ...
indicate that 'Disinfecting previously used needles and syringes. . .
is not as safe as always using a sterile needle and syringe.'" In a
perfect world, we wouldn't need this program. There would be no IV
drug users. We would have either mastered the medicine that would
eliminate the disease of addiction or made life so simple and pleasant
that no one would feel the need to pick up.

This isn't a perfect world.

Marathon County is home to about 500 intravenous drug users, according
to the state - about 250 in the Wausau metro area. State AIDS Resource
Center officials hope the local program reaches 50 of those in the
first year and that the number grows as word spreads. It costs about
$100,000 for lifetime treatment of an AIDS patient, which adds up to
between $10 billion and $15 billion a year in the United States.

By that measure alone, the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin's needle
exchange program will more than pay for itself if it prevents one
infection. And the counseling that comes with the free needles might
help a user find his or her way out of the hell of addiction.

We can only hope.

To learn more To find out more about the clean-needle exchange, call
the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin in Schofield.