CLINTON SPINELESS ON NEEDLE FUNDS

IT IS tempting to blame the Paula Jones scandal for Bill Clinton's
cowardice, but it wouldn't be fair. Clinton has always been a coward.

Clinton's gutless refusal to fund programs that save lives by providing
clean needles to drug addicts was not an inevitable result of a weakened
presidency. Even if Clinton were not hounded by charges of sexual
misconduct, he would be an unlikely savior of poor heroin addicts. They
don't have the money to make campaign contributions and they don't have the
demographics the president's pollsters like to see.

For years now, renegade do gooder groups have been distributing clean
syringes - which, in many states, are regulated like prescription drugs -
to intravenous drug users as a way to cut down on the transmission of HIV,
the virus that causes AIDS. Because poor drug users often share syringes,
they face high risks of HIV infection.

Indeed, IV drug use is responsible for most of the growth in HIV
infections, especially among the poor and members of ethnic minority
groups. According to Dr. David Satcher, the U.S. surgeon general, about 40
percent of all new AIDS cases in this country are directly or indirectly
related to contaminated needles; the rate is 75 percent among women and
children.

The good Samaritans who hand out clean needles don't have much money for
the program. They had been led to believe the Clinton administration would
lift the nine-year-old ban on federal funds for clean needles - giving them
both money and the implicit sanction of the Clinton administration.

After all, Congress had declared that the president could lift the ban if
research showed two things: that needle exchanges reduce the spread of HIV
infections, and that needle exchanges do not encourage illegal drug use.

Well, the science is in. Programs that distribute clean syringes do curb
HIV infections without increasing IV drug use, according to several
studies.

But the science did not stiffen Clinton's spine. The Clinton administration
announced that although programs that provide clean syringes save lives,
they will not receive federal funds. He made the decision despite estimates
from public health experts that hundreds of lives could be saved through
needle exchanges.

The mealy-mouthed policy was Clinton's way, according to news reports, of
avoiding a controversy. How very like Clinton. Lives are at stake, but he
wants to avoid a controversy. Any hope that a second Clinton term would put
principle over polls was dashed.

And, of course, the inevitable political backlash broke out anyway. Clinton
is being harshly criticized for even endorsing the idea of needle exchanges
by the same narrow-minded set who remain convinced that clean needles
encourage drug use, just as they remain convinced that condoms produce sex.

The president's own drug czar, General Barry McCaffrey (who, as the
commander of the war on drugs, runs the longest losing war in the nation's
history), opposed federal funding for clean syringes, suggesting that such
programs send the wrong message for children. I wonder: Just what kind of
message does an HIV-infected 3-year-old send to the general?

There is a lesson in all this that Bill Clinton never seems to learn:
You're not going to please everybody, so you might as well do the right
thing.

Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor of the Atlanta Constitution.