The Swiss 'Neue Zurcher Zeitung' (http://www.nzz.ch) devotes a column to
the positive results obtained from prison NEPs (needle exchange programs).

Prison NEPs Lessen AIDS Danger

Prison NEPs reduce the risk of infection without increasing consumption.
This is the essence of a report prepared for the ministry of health by a
research team from the University of Bern.

The report is titled "Battling HIV-AIDS and drug consumption in prison".
Based on a one year investigation at the ‘Realta’ prison in the Graubuenden
Canton, it says that 81% of the drug dependent prisoners are aware of the
danger of infection with the AIDS virus from using shared needles. The
study reveals that drug dependents who admit using heroin and cocaine in
prison are those most affected by the virus. It puts the percentage of
prisoners affected to be 5.1%, or roughly twenty times that in the general
population.

Syringe Machines

The consumption of illegal drugs in a place supposedly hermetically sealed,
may be found astonishing. There is, however, a turnover in the prison
population every six months. Moreover, convicts on day leave often smuggle
drugs into the prison. In the face of these facts, everything possible has
been done to lessen the risk of infection, continues the report which has
been published in French, English and German.

Above all, the use of shared needles, potential virus carriers, must be
prevented. For this reason, several other prisons in addition to ‘Realta’
have decided on the implementation of pilot-projects which provide for the
introduction of automatic syringe exchange machines: new needles for old.

AG fuer die Neue Zuercher Zeitung NZZ 1999 ...........

News in Brief

The Frankfurter Neue Presse (http://www.rhein-main.net) carries a column
titled: 'Corruption Prevents International Police Action'

Frankfurt. Well may the airport authorities increase their array of weapons
to catch smugglers, sniffing them out with the help of police dogs ‘Urban’
and ‘Bodo’: the smugglers devise ever more refined smuggling methods. Only
last October a Colombian flight captain was found with 17 kilos of heroin
in his service pack. The drug cartels decided against any further use of
flight personnel.

The amount of cocaine from Colombia continues to rise, the way smoothed by
bribery or devising alternate routes via Jamaica and other holiday resorts
in the Caribbean.

In another column, the same paper confirmed the place of Frankfurt as hub
of the smuggling cartels' activities, reporting that of the total of 527
kilos of cocaine seized in German airports, roughly one third of that
amount was seized at Frankfurt.