N.J. LAW;
UNRESOLVED HIV DEBATE: SHOULD ADDICTS GET FREE NEEDLES? By KIT R. ROANE
Copyright (c) 1997, The New York Times Company

Diana McCague recalls many scenes from her days passing
out needles on the streets of New Jersey, the laughs she
received when first setting up on a corner, the sudden
press for her services that followed with each passing day.
But one scene sticks in her mind. A boy rode up on a
bicycle with a story about his mother, a former heroin
addict who was wasting away in an AIDS ward. "I guess you
weren't out here then," she recalls him saying before
riding off. "I guess you weren't out here to save her
life."

Ms. McCague, who began handing out needles in 1994, has
not been to that corner in a long time, not since her
arrest last year on a disorderly persons charge for handing
out clean needles. The only needles she now feels
comfortable providing are those laid out as a prop on her
lawyer's mahogany conference table as she readies for the
trial.

In New Jersey, where unclean hypodermic needles are the
single largest cause of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS,
the issue of whether addicts should be provided clean ones
remains unresolved, as it is in many other states. And the
case of Ms. McCague and another volunteer who was arrested,
has further fueled the debate, which pits a wealth of
public health data supporting such exchanges against the
political resistance of Governor Whitman.

AIDS advocates, health professionals and some
legislators have lobbied for much of the past decade for a
more aggressive stance against the spread of the disease,
advocating sometimes unpopular measures like needle
exchanges that seem to show results on the street but
that fail in the political arena. A strong majority of the
Governor's Advisory Council on AIDS voted last year to
recommend that the state amend its laws to allow needle
exchanges and the sale of syringes without a prescription.
State Senator Wynona M. Lipman, whose district includes the
hardhit Newark area, has sponsored two bills that would do
just that. But for nearly a year they have remained in the
Senate Health committee, she said, adding that there was
little political will to push them forward.

"All the experts have come to the conclusion that
needles are the biggest cause of AIDS and that to stop the
virus we need to give addicts access to clean needles,"
Senator Lipman said. "But politicians don't want to go out
on a limb and I doubt my bills will ever get out of
committee. If they do, I expect them to be soundly voted
down."

Political timidity is not the only thing holding back
change. From the Governor on down, many legislators,
members of the clergy and law enforcement officials counter
that the state cannot get into the practice of appearing to
permit or abet illegal drug activity, no matter the health
benefits.

"We are aware of the data supporting these measures,"
said Dr. Leah Ziskin, the deputy commissioner of the
state's Department of Health and Senior Services, who cast
one of the five dissenting votes on the 29member Advisory
Council on AIDS. "However, we view this not purely as a
health issue.

"There are law enforcement issues at stake, perception
issue and messages that the government gives out by
condoning something like giving out needles and syringes,"
she said.

New Jersey is not alone in defending its ban. Only eight
states Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
New York, Alaska, South Carolina and Iowa, as well as the
District of Columbia either exempt syringe exchanges
from drug paraphernalia laws or do not have such statutes.

Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut go one step
further, allowing pharmacists to sell syringes without a
prescription, but such states are the exceptions Throughout
the country, a tangle of local and state regulations as
well as a Federal prohibition on the transport of drug
paraphernalia across state lines prevent needle exchanges
from operating legally.

There is also a ban on Federal funding of needle
exchanges, even though studies by the National Institutes
for Health and the Centers for Disease Control, the General
Accounting Office and many other organizations found that
providing addicts with clean needles did not increase drug
use and could drastically reduce the spread of the virus,
not only among addicts, but also their sex partners and
children.

Driven by these facts, AIDS activists like Ms. McCague
have increasingly flouted the law and opened needle
exchanges in states that do not permit them, buying
syringes with donations and using volunteers to pass them
out. While there are 46 needle exchanges operating
legally in the United States, counts done last year found
65 more operating illegally.

Some, like Ms. McCague's organization, the Chai Project
(from the Hebrew word for life), have done so publicly and
have been tolerated to a point. But it is a tenuous
existence.

Though her organization had been handing out needles on
the same corners for two and a half years and several news
accounts have been published about their activities, Ms.
McCague and a colleague, Thomas Scozzare, were not arrested
until April 18, two weeks after Governor Whitman
disregarded her AIDS advisory committee's recommendation to
legalize such establishments.

Their case appears to be only the second in the state.
Although the charge, a disorderly persons offense, is in
Municipal Court, the defendants' lawyers are trying to
maneuver it into a higher court to challenge the law. They
argue that needle exchanges do not "actually cause or
threaten the harm or evil sought to be prevented by the
law."

Legal experts say this is unlikely to work because these
laws leave little room for interpretation. But with little
chance that the Legislature will redraw the statute itself,
Ms. McCague has little choice. Win or lose the penalty
is six months in jail or a $1,000 fine or both she is
likely to be back on the street handing out needles.

"My philosophy is that if something needs to be done and
you can do it, you do," said Ms. McCague, who estimates
that she and other volunteers passed out more than 35,000
syringes during the two and a half years that preceded her
arrest. "I perceive what I have done as a moral
obligation."