THE LAST HOLDOUT RECONSIDERS A PROGRAM TO CURB H.I.V.

CAMDEN, N.J. -- On most days, the fringe workers in this city's
stunningly vibrant drug trade shout and gesticulate from street
corners like hot dog vendors at a ballpark, hawking hypodermic
needles they claim are clean.

"Works for sale! Works for sale!"

But the shouting stopped at one corner recently after one of those
dealers died of a drug overdose. For his loyal customers, it was a
disaster, however briefly.

"It was a drought of works," said Maria Lugo, 26, who said that she
injects heroin eight times a day. "People were picking up old needles
off the street. They didn't care. They just wanted to get off."

That mix of apathy and addiction has led to what health officials say
is a public health crisis in New Jersey, where state figures show
that more than 4 in 10 cases of H.I.V. infection result from
injecting illegal drugs with contaminated needles. Even so, New
Jersey remains the one state that prohibits the distribution of
hypodermic needles in government-sanctioned programs.

That may soon change. In a reversal that even supporters acknowledge
would have been unexpected as recently as six months ago, lawmakers
may well pass a bill soon to allow needle exchanges in New Jersey.

The legislation, to be considered this week, appears finally to have
enough support to win passage, 14 years after it was first
introduced, and Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign it.

To supporters, the bill is long overdue, and the Legislature's
refusal to approve it has contributed to the deaths of an untold
number of drug users.

To opponents, including State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., the
Republican nominee for the United States Senate, the measure would
mean nothing less than a government endorsement of illegal drug use.

One of the bill's most vocal critics, State Senator Ronald L. Rice, a
former Newark police officer who represents a district in Essex
County, has compared legal needle exchanges to the notorious Tuskegee
Syphilis Study, an experiment in Alabama from 1932 until 1972 in
which proper treatment was withheld from African-Americans infected
with venereal disease.

Mr. Rice has argued that exchange programs contribute to a cycle of
social and economic inertia for minorities and the poor.

A better use of state money, he says, would be to create more
programs providing drug education and treatment.

"Those who want a syringe access program are saying that it's O.K.
for drug users to continue using drugs and kill themselves because
it's cheaper for the government," he said.

It was Mr. Rice, a Democrat, who negotiated an alliance with the
Republican minority in the Senate to prevent the needle exchange bill
from getting out of committee as recently as last spring.

But last Monday, committee members reached a compromise that would
allow pilot needle exchange programs in six cities. The program would
be re-evaluated in five years under the bill, which would also
provide $10 million for drug treatment programs.

State Senator Nia H. Gill, a Democrat from Essex County who sponsored
the original legislation, cited statistics that show New Jersey is
the state with the third-highest rate of H.I.V. infection among
children, and the highest rate among women.

Nearly 33,000 residents of New Jersey have AIDS, according to state
health officials, and, in a statement, Ms. Gill noted that almost as
many -- about 30,000 -- have died of the disease.

"If there were any other cause of hundreds of deaths of children,
thousands of deaths of women and the orphaning of tens of thousands
of children -- our Legislature would act on an emergency basis to
reduce that cause," she said.

To those who see the consequences of the drug trade in neighborhoods
like South Camden, an exchange program cannot come too soon.

Several times a week, Jose Quann and Johnny Brown, workers with the
Camden Area Health Education Center, drive a modified recreational
vehicle through some of the bleakest parts of the city to do
street-level prevention and education concerning H.I.V. and AIDS.

They hand out free condoms to prostitutes. They give intravenous-drug
users bleach kits to sterilize syringes. And they offer health
services like free blood pressure screenings and new oral H.I.V.
tests that yield results in 20 minutes.

Bouncing over the uneven asphalt along Broadway in South Camden the
other day, Mr. Brown, a burly 51-year-old, said that he did not
believe free needles would encourage drug abuse.

"When they take part in needle exchange, it means they're starting to
take an interest in their health," Mr. Brown said. "That's the first step."

Mr. Quann, 46, agreed. "It's a win-win for everybody," he said.
"Right now, they're disposing of these things in our back alleys, in
our playground where our kids are getting pricked."

Although the six cities in the proposed pilot program have not been
chosen, both men hope that Camden, whose 75,000 residents, according
to city figures, include an estimated 800 people with H.I.V. or AIDS,
will be one of them.

So did a half-dozen visitors to their bus.

One of them, a 30-year-old prostitute who said her first name was
Summer, sneered at the idea that providing free needles would promote drug use.

"Users are going to use anyway," she said. "But you'd have less
people infected with H.I.V., hepatitis."