CRACK PIPE DREAMS

President Clinton should be hailed by his AIDS advisers for his refusal to
fund "needle exchange" programs. Instead, they allege, he lacks "courage
and political will." Providing drug addicts with clean syringes in
exchange for dirty ones will reduce the risky behavior associated with
injecting dangerous drugs, they argue, and thus reduce HIV infections. This
"feelgood" solution makes sense to sober people, but drug addicts are a
unique population to which logic does not apply.

This is why the president should continue to resist the AIDS lobby: Recent
results of epidemiological studies in Baltimore, Montreal and Vancouver,
British Columbia, show a tremendous increase in new HIV and AIDS cases
among participants in needle exchange programs. "Injecting Drug Use
Associated With More AIDS Cases in Maryland Than Nationally" is the title
of the report published in October by the Center for Substance Abuse
Research at the University of Maryland. Its findings are alarming: While
injecting drugs accounts for 26 percent of AIDS cases nationally, in
Maryland it accounts for 42 percent, of which the majority (52 percent) are
in Baltimore.

Baltimore's longstanding needleexchange program was established under
the auspices of Mayor Kurt Schmoke. The mayor's "enlightened attitude
towards the drug problem," said billionaire financierphilanthropist George
Soros, was the reason he awarded Baltimore $25 million to expand the city's
progressive social projects. But if the recent results of Maryland's AIDS
study are any indication, we can expect that Mr. Soros' money, coupled
with Mr. Schmoke's "enlightened attitude," will cause a rapid growth of
new HIV and AIDS cases in Baltimore and Maryland.

Evidently, these disturbing results do not alarm the Washingtonbased Drug
Policy Foundation (DPF) and San Francisco's Tides Foundation. Both
organizations are supporting alternative drug policies, especially
"harmreduction" and needle exchange programs. Both are funded by Mr.
Soros. DPF has received several million dollars from Mr. Soros in the
past four years, and the Tides Foundation was in August the recipient of a
$1 million gift from Mr. Soros for needle exchanges.

Both organizations have now gone one incredible step further, to fund the
distribution of safecrackuser kits: the Piper (Crack) Smokers user kit,
which includes paraphernalia and instruction for "Safer Using" and "Things
Not To Do," and the "Shoot Smart, Shoot Safe" pamphlet, which has "tips for
safer crack injection." This brochure seems to make a new development in
the campaign to legalize or medicalize illegal drugs.

In addition to instructions on "how to," the brochure contains pictures
demonstrating proper injection. A person who had never used crack before
will find the instruction quite helpful. The kits and free needles are
distributed through needleexchange programs of the health departments of
Philadelphia and Bridgeport, Conn.

These "harm productionists" are people and organizations that take their
lead and most of their funding from Mr. Soros. In 1996, it was largely
Mr. Soros' funding that led to the successful campaign to amend local laws
to permit the use of "medical" marijuana in California and all other
illegal drugs in Arizona. (The initiative has since been reversed in
Arizona by the legislature, but the Clinton administration has failed to
pursue a reversal in California.)

In his book "Soros on Soros," he says, "If it were up to me, I would
establish a strictly controlled distribution network through which I would
make most drugs, excluding the most dangerous ones like crack, legally
available." But now the foundations that he sponsors are funding the
distribution of safecrackuser kits for smokers and injectors.

"The people who distribute these are harmproductionists and not
harmreductionists," said Dr. Robert DuPont, the first director of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), "because they promote drug use."
Mr. Soros, who claims to be the champion of "open societies" and
individual freedom, now seems to promote the worst king of slavery: crack
addiction. Doesn't he see the inconsistency?

Mr. Soros' vision of an "open society" does not allow for prohibitionist
drug policies and the implementation of the criminal justice code in drug
abuse cases. He claimed in a Sept. 1 Time magazine cover story that he
has already given $90 million and is soon planning to add $15 million more
to advance alternative drug policies.

With the advantage of Mr. Soros' checkbook advocacy and advanced marketing
techniques heavy on "compassion," prolegalization initiatives to
"medicalize" or "decriminalize" drugs in other states in the United States
by the end of 1998 are in full gear. And Mr. Soros does not limit his
efforts to push forward his agenda. Last week, he endorsed the campaign
for "medical" marijuana launched by the Independent newspaper in England.
If successful, Britain had better brace itself for the safecrackuser kits
that are bound to follow.

Mr. Soros' relentless efforts and many millions of dollars have made a
noticeable difference: Endorsing drug "medicalization," "decriminalization"
or "legalization" has become the politically correct thing to do. Even
U.S. drug policy is now focused more on "treatment" than "war."

Mr. Soros now says he does not support drug legalization. What he does,
he says, is help "to fight the evils of the drug laws." And since drug
prohibition does not work, it will be more realistic, Mr. Soros claims, to
provide drugs to those who need them. Mr. Soros and his prodrug
activists' message is that drug use is here to stay, constituting a civil
right.

Marc Galanter, director of the Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse at the
New York University Medical Center, disagrees. "Cocaine presents a
dangerous health risk at any level (especially crack) and the demonstration
of its supposed safe use can only support its abuse."

As for needle exchange as a prevention for AIDS, Dr. Curtis observed
that "the fact is that sexual promiscuity associated with crack is the lead
cause for new cases of HIV and AIDS."

Perhaps this information will give the president the courage he needs to
resist his AIDS advisers.