NEEDLE BILL NOT OUT OF THE WOODS YET

The landslide votes in the House and Senate for the Pharmacy Access
bill were a victory for HIV/AIDS advocates, but their efforts could
be thwarted if Sen. Minority Leader Brian Lees and Gov. Mitt Romney
have their way. Both have been vocal opponents of the bill, which
would allow people to buy syringes in pharmacies without a
prescription. Denise McWilliams, AIDS Action Committee's director of
public policy and legal affairs, accused Lees in particular of trying
to delay action on the bill until the end of the current legislative
session, July 31.

"It's not a legislative battle. It's not even a partisan battle. It's
a Sen. Lees battle," said McWilliams "Both chambers have voted
overwhelmingly in favor of this act, and it really is a case now of
Sen. Lees utilizing every possible tool to derail it."

Lees, who did not return calls from Bay Windows to comment for this
story, used procedural maneuvers to delay a vote in the Senate on the
bill for nearly a month until its passage June 7 by a 26-8 vote.
McWilliams said she expects him to attempt further delays to run down
the clock between now and July 31 as proponents of the bill work to
overcome several hurdles, including a likely veto by Romney, in order
to pass the bill into law.

Thus far momentum appears on the side of proponents of the needle
bill. The House approved the Senate's changes to the bill the day
after the Senate vote, and both houses voted to adopt an emergency
preamble to the bill that would allow it to take effect immediately
after final passage into law. The House and Senate must now each vote
to enact the bill, which would send the bill to Romney's desk.
McWilliams said she is confident that the bill will make it to Romney
by the end of this week.

"I'm very confident it will make it to the governor's desk,"
McWilliams said. "The challenge for us is making sure we have enough
time to survive the governor's procedural maneuvers."

Once the bill comes before Romney he has 10 days to sign or veto it.
McWilliams said Romney could wait the full 10 days and either veto
the bill or send it back to the legislature with an attached
amendment that they would have to consider. Romney's office did not
return a call to comment for this story.

Lees told the Boston Globe June 8 that he would work to build a group
of 14 senators necessary to sustain the governor's veto, but
McWilliams said she is confident both houses will be able to override
the veto. The House passed the bill by a veto-proof majority in November.

Yet Romney appears to be exerting considerable political pressure to
block passage of the bill. While the state Department of Public
Health (DPH) has historically supported clean needle sales, this
month in the wake of Romney's public comments against the bill
commissioner Paul Cote told the Globe that DPH had changed its
position from favoring needle sales to favoring allowing individual
cities to choose to set up their own needle exchange programs. A
spokesperson for DPH did not return a call to comment, but Jean
Flatley McGuire, former director of DPH's HIV/AIDS Bureau until
November 2003, accused Romney of pressuring DPH to change to further
his political ambitions.

"I think as his national aspirations have expanded, his scrutiny as
far as administrative programs and policies has increased, and it's
not in the interest of public health, and Paul Cote's remarks after
the [Senate] action on pharmacy access I thought were regrettable,"
said McGuire, who headed the HIV/AIDS Bureau for more than five years
and who now serves as a visiting professor at Northeastern
University's Bouve College of Health Sciences.

McWilliams said that AIDS Action plans to ask its supporters to lobby
the legislature by phone and e-mail and ask them to support passing
the bill. She said the efforts by both houses to help the Pharmacy
Access bill to clear procedural hurdles by approving the emergency
preamble suggests that advocates have a shot of passing the bill into
law before the end of the legislative session. The Senate approved
the emergency preamble June 20 during an informal session with little
difficulty, and McWilliams said Lees was not in the chamber during
that session.

"I actually think [the Senate vote on the preamble] is a really good
step and I'm really heartened by it, and I expect to see the
legislation go to the governor's desk by the end of this week," said
McWilliams. "As long as the supporters continue to make their voice
heard about the need for this I think we stand a good chance of
getting it passed."