NO FEDERAL MONEY FOR NEEDLE SWAPS

The decision comes despite a Clinton administration declaration that it
fights AIDS.

Washington - The Clinton administration refused Monday to use federal tax
dollars to buy clean needles for drug addicts, even though it said needle
exchanges fight AIDS without encouraging illegal drug use.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said her scientific
endorsement should encourage more communities to start their own needle
exchanges.

But Shalala, under orders from the White House, sidestepped a political
fight with conservatives and stopped short of providing communities with
federal money to let addicts swap dirty needles for clean ones.

Half of all people who catch HIV are infected by needles or by sex with
injecting drug users, or are children of infected addicts.

The decision bitterly disappointed AIDS activists, who said they couldn't
recall another medical program the government had declared lifesaving but
refused to try to pay for.

Republicans continued to argue that needle exchanges are bad policy.

"Why not simply provide heroin itself, free of charge, courtesy of the
America taxpayer?" asked Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo.

President Clinton's own drug policy chief, Barry McCaffrey, spent the
weekend arguing that needle exchanges jeopardize the administration's war
on drugs and send the wrong message to children. Officials familiar with
the heated debate said McCaffrey's objections were central to killing a
proposed compromise, a pilot project paying for needle exchanges in 10
cities.

The nation's top science organizations have long said needle exchanges
would cut the AIDS toll. But Congress banned federally funded needle
exchanges unless Shalala certified that such programs fight the spread of
HIV without encouraging drug use.

Monday, Shalala did that, saying a review of studies concluded that
programs that provide drug counseling and push addicts into treatment work
best. Preventive measures have helped Orange County keep the rate of AIDS
in intravenous drug users down during the epidemic, but county figures show
that rate is rising.

The percent of AIDS cases associated with injection drug use more than
doubled between 1990 and 1997, from 6 percent to 14 percent of all county
cases.