BUDGET FORBIDS MONEY FOR NEEDLE EXCHANGE

The federal budget signed into law yesterday includes a ban on government
funding for any group that operates a needle exchange program for District
drug users. The only agency that swaps needles on D.C. streets wasted no
time in announcing that it has devised a way to keep its needle program
going without endangering the government grants that support other services.

Until yesterday, a four-member Whitman-Walker Clinic crew swapped 17,000
needles a month from a van that made regular stops all around the city.
Whitman-Walker officials announced yesterday they have transferred the unit
to a new corporation with no legal ties to the clinic.

The clinic's attorneys say they can lease office space to the new agency,
Prevention Works Inc.

It wasn't clear yesterday whether these actions would provoke a response
from the author of the ban, U.S. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), a conservative
member of the House Appropriations Committee who was elected in the 1994
Republican revolution. Tiahrt was in his district yesterday, and he and
officials with the committee did not respond to numerous

requests for comment.

Not only does Tiahrt's far-reaching budget provision bar federal and
District funding of any needle exchange, but it also threatens to revoke
all government funding to any agency that trades needles -- even if the
agency does so strictly with private funds.

The rule applies only to the District and not to any of the more than 100
needle exchange programs in operation in more than 30 states.

Critics of the unusually sweeping limits, contained in the $520 billion
budget passed by Congress this week and signed into law by President
Clinton yesterday, denounced the action as one that values political
symbolism above science.

Researchers have found in repeated studies that needle exchanges are
effective ways to slow the spread of HIV and other blood-borne illnesses
without increasing drug abuse. But even some officials who acknowledge the
validity of those studies are uncomfortable with the idea of supplying any
kind of assistance to drug addicts.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) called Tiahrt's amendment an outrageous
intrusion on the city's home rule and especially troubling in a community
where HIV has become increasingly a black and Hispanic disease.

"This Congress has said, 'Drop dead' to thousands of Americans, most of
them people of color," Norton said. "I view it as a callous death sentence
with profound racial overtones. It puts the District in a class by itself:
the only jurisdiction that flies the American flag that can't prevent the
AIDS epidemic from swallowing the city whole."

Ron Lewis, head of the District's AIDS agency, said that he was "very
disappointed" by the limit and that he supports any private group that can
keep the swap going. "We know it works," he said.

Peter Lurie, an epidemiologist whose research at the University of
California at San Francisco found that needle exchanges reduce HIV
transmission without promoting drug use, called the limit a "lethal social
experiment."

Whitman-Walker is the city's largest provider of social and medical
services to people with HIV and AIDS. It receives about $7 million in
federal and local government funding, all of which would be lost if it
violates the ban.

Whitman-Walker's needle program was paid for with $210,000 from the
District and $50,000 from private donors.

The new corporation, Prevention Works, will use only private funds.

Checked-by: Richard Lake