NEEDLE EXCHANGES AS ASSISTED SUICIDE

Giving kids condoms doesn't promote promiscuity. Providing welfare benefits
for unwed mothers doesn't encourage illegitimacy. And distributing needles
to addicts has no impact on drug use.

Liberals have abolished cause and effect.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala announced April 20 the
administration will not lift the ban on federal funding of needle exchange
programs. Congress had loudly threatened to reinstate the ban, if Shalala
lifted it, and the president's own drug czar fought the move.

Then, as a statement of ideological commitment, the secretary declared that
while federal money won't be available, such programs an effective way to
fight AIDS and don't encourage addiction. Sure, and they also build strong
bodies in 12 ways and are clinically proven to fight cavities.

Three days later, billionaire George Soros stepped forward to fill the
void, offering $ 1 million of his own money to underwrite these lethal
projects.

Needle-exchange programs are part of the stealth campaign for drug
legalization, a point we will return to shortly. That aside, how effective
are they? Very - if the goal is to give the Golden Triangle a
full-employment economy.

James L. Curtis, a professor of psychiatry and director of addiction
services at the Harlem Hospital Center, calls needle exchange "simplistic
nonsense that stands common sense on its head." Curtis warns that the
programs "hurt not only individual addicts but also poor and minority
communities."

Vancouver, Canada, has the largest needle give-away program in North
America. Two million syringes are distributed each year. Since the program
started in 1988, HIV prevalence among intravenous drug users has gone from
under 2 percent to 23 percent and deaths from drug overdoses are up
five-fold, giving Vancouver the highest heroin death rate in North America.

In a Montreal study, 39 percent of those who participated in its needle
exchange reported sharing dirty needles, compared to the 38 percent of
non-participants.

Needle exchange programs promote the spread of AIDS by promoting addiction.
The addicts who gather for syringe swaps network and learn where to
acquire new supplies. By cutting the time it takes them to get drugs, these
exchange programs increase drug use.

Since police are ordered not to harass addicts at the exchanges, the sites
become safe zones for the sale and use of narcotics.

In many of the more than 100 needle exchange programs in America, users are
given a variety of additional paraphernalia, like pans for cooking heroin.
At Baltimore, participants receive a pamphlet, "Shoot Smart, Shoot Safe:
Tips for Safer Crack Injection," illustrated with photos of needles being
jabbed into veins. What better use for our tax dollars?

Soros' support for needle exchange programs establishes a crucial link
between such programs and the legalization lobby. Former Health, Education
and Welfare Secretary Joseph Califano calls the financier the "Daddy
Warbucks of drug legalization."

In the past decade, Soros has given more than $ 20 million to change
American drug policy. This includes millions poured into so-called medical
marijuana initiatives in California, Arizona and Washington state.

He's also bestowed $ 6.4 million on the Drug Policy Foundation (a
legalization think tank) and given $ 4 million to its parent group, the
Lindesmith Center, which he founded.

To head Lindesmith, Soros chose Ethan Nadelmann, whose article in the
January issue of Foreign Affairs calls for making needles available through
public vending machines and heroin distribution to addicts.

In the name of compassion, medical marijuana and needle exchanges are back
doors to legalization. The idea is to legitimize addiction by getting
government involved in various ways, such as subsidizing needle
distribution and certifying pot as a palliative. Not surprisingly, the
biggest boosters of needle exchange are also the most enthusiastic
legalizers - besides Soros, former Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders,
Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke and the ACLU's Ira Glasser.

Heroin use among teens doubled between 1991 and 1996. In San Francisco,
site of another needle exchange program, hospital admissions for heroin
increased 66 percent from 1986 to 1995.

Needle exchange programs are a form of assisted suicide - another of Soros'
pet causes for the betterment of humanity. It would be cheaper to just give
addicts .38s and ammo, along with instructions on how to safely blow their
brains out. The effect is the same.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski