EDITORIAL

NEEDLING GIULIANI

Say that Mayor Guiliani got a report last June issued by one of his outside
advisory councils - a report recommending that the city bankroll people's
drug habits, facilitate addiction and condone hard-core drug abuse.

If the mayor had seen such a report, would he have buried it? No, he would
have attacked it and gotten himself an easy headline in the midst of an
election: "Mayor Attacks Advisory Council/"Soft on Drugs,' Guiliani Says."

It turns out that an outside advisory council did issue such a report,
which surfaced this week in a New York Observer story. The report was
called "Needle Exchange Programs: An Analysis of Benefits and Costs," and
it was the handiwork of the Mayor's Office of AIDS Policy Coordination. The
Observer claims that Giuliani and his aides buried the report.

The only problem with the story is that Deputy Mayor Randy Mastro says no
one in the Mayor's Office ever heard of the document. But if it had crossed
his desk, Mastro says, he'd have proudly nixed it. And New Yorkers would
have had reason to be grateful.

The report recommended that the city fund and publicize needle-exchange
programs. It argued that some studies indicate such programs help slow the
spread of HIV among intravenous drug users.

What is a needle-exchange program? It's a trade-in service. A junkie comes
in with a polluted needle and trades it for a shiny new rig. The folks who
go to exchange programs make no secret that they use their needles to
inject heroin and other illegal narcotics. Do they get busted? Quite the
opposite. They're given a pat on the back and told to go out and shoot
safely.

Nine private programs in the city currently distribute this drug
paraphernalia. But the report concluded nine just wasn't enough. It urged
City Hall to spend $2.5 million of taxpayer money on more needles. It even
encouraged the city to make needles more easily available by having
hospitals and other "relevant city service entities" distribute them.

Hey, these aren't sewing needles. They are hypodermics, used exclusively
for the abuse of drugs whose very possession is a felony. Furthermore, it's
a crime in New York state to use or possess needles without a prescription.
So when junkies walk in with their tainted needles, they are already
breaking the law.

Guiliani believes needle exchanges reinforce drug addiction and muddy the
struggle against illegal narcotics, and he's right. He has launched a
sweeping crackdown on narcotics, and handing out paraphernalia to junkies
would basically end a drug war right where it must begin - in City Hall.

By wrongly charging the mayor with a cover-up, The New York Observer and
its reporter, Joe Conason - yes, Joe Conason, better known as the nation's
most embarrassing Clinton suck-up - have done the mayor a disservice.

Copyright (c) 1998, N.Y.P. Holdings, Inc.