Evidence is in: They can reduce AIDS without fostering drug use

Understandable uneasy with government agencies giving addicts
needles and other paraphernalia, Congress prohibited federally
funded needle exchange programs in 1988. The ban could be lifted,
Congress said, when there was proof that such programs reduced
transmission of the AIDS virus without increasing illegal drug
use.Now,that time has come.

Since 1993,several major studies have shown that the programs
that give addicts clean needles in exchange for used ones decrease
HIV infection in injecteddrug users by 30%,increase the likelihood
that addicts will enter drug treatment programs and do nothing to
lead nonusers into drug habits. But,unlike in most developed nations,
many U.S. state laws and federal law prohibit government from sup
plying clean needles.(California does not prohibit private programs,
but Gov. Pete Wilson has thrice vetoed bills that would have explicitly
legalized such programs.)

Prohibitions cost lives and money. According to the federal Centers
for Disease Control,most of the 41,000 new HIV infections each year
occure among injecteddrug users and their sexual partners and children.
The average cost of lifetime care for those infected with HIV or suffering
from AIDS runs about $120,000, while each sterile needle costs 10 cents.

Citing "an urgent public health need ," the American Medical Assn. and
the U.S. Conference of Mayors have called for revocation of the 1988 law
and of similar state laws prohibiting needle exchange programs.In a reso
lution sponsored by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and San Francisco
Mayor Willie Brown, the Conference of Mayors went a step further, urging
Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala to use her authority
to permit federal funding.

Reflecting the conventional wisdom in Washington,conservative public
policy analyst Gary L.Bauer says the idea of lifting the ban on needle
exchange is unthinkable because it "strikes the average voter in the
gut as being against common sense." But recent polls suggest otherwise:
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey last year found that 66% of Americans
support needle exchange programs.

Washington should listen to the civic leaders and public health experts
who have seen close up how the programs can be an effective and inexpensive
way of curbing the spread of a deadly disease.