GOP BALKS AT IDEA OF LIFTING BAN ON NEEDLE FUNDING

Conservatives threaten bills to prevent White House action

Conservatives reacted angrily yesterday to reports that the Clinton
administration is on the verge of lifting a 10-year-old ban on using
federal funds for needle exchange programs to prevent the spread of AIDS.

As one Republican lawmaker said he would introduce legislation on Monday to
reimpose a moratorium on the use of federal funds for such programs,
advocates of needle exchange programs privately expressed concern that the
criticism might lead the administration to lose its nerve and ultimately
leave the ban in place.

The chorus of opposition suggests that Republicans will try to make the ban
a major campaign issue if it is lifted.

``Our message on drug use ought to be clear and unambiguous -- not a wink
and a nod and `I would have inhaled if I could have,' '' said Republican
National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson, a clear reference to President
Clinton.

Nicholson said using federal funds for needle exchanges amounts ``to giving
aid and comfort to the enemy in the war on drugs.''

Senator Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., who initiated a program in his home state
called Operation Drug Free Georgia and who is a prominent voice in the
effort to curb international drug sales, said he will introduce legislation
that would bar Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala from
lifting the ban even if she wanted to.

``I find it difficult to comprehend how we can ask other nations to help us
in our fight when at home we are handing out free needles in our
neighborhoods to drug addicts,'' Coverdell wrote in a letter he sent to
President Clinton in Chile, where the president is attending a summit
meeting of 34 Latin American leaders. ``By allowing taxpayer dollars to
subsidize these programs, we are de facto decriminalizing intravenous drug
use.''

To buttress their arguments, critics cited the opposition of retired
General Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's ``drug czar,'' to needle
exchange programs. Some argued that it was a moral decision as well a
question of policy.

``Needle exchange is a terrible and morally indefensible policy,'' said
William Bennett, executive director of Empower America and a former drug
czar in the Reagan administration. ``The problem isn't dirty needles, the
problem is heroin and drug addiction.''

And Robert Maginnis of the Family Research Council, another leading
conservative organization, said lifting the ban would be a ``national
disgrace.''

``It promotes a culture of death by condemning addicts to the killing
fields of heroin,'' he said.

To blunt some of the criticism, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown sent a
letter co-signed by mayors of five cities, including Baltimore and Detroit,
to Shalala yesterday.

``We are not requesting additional federal funding for needle exchanges,''
the mayors wrote. ``We are simply asking the federal government to allow
local governments the discretion to use existing federal funding for HIV
prevention to support needle programs in our cities.''

Nationally, about 100 communities operate their own needle exchange
programs without using federal funds. San Francisco runs the largest
program, handing out 2.2 million needles each year, using private and city
funds.

Numerous reports prepared for the nation's leading scientific organizations
have concluded that needle exchange programs help prevent the spread of
AIDS and do not encourage drug use.

)1998 San Francisco Chronicle