STICKING POINT

Congress Could End the Ban on Federal Funding of Needle Exchange
Programs -- and Still Kill D.C.'s Vital Effort.

AFTER SECURING the right from Congress last year to use its own money
to fund needle exchange programs last year, the District stands to
lose it. Confusingly, the threat is wrapped up in legislation that
ostensibly would lift a 21-year-old ban on using federal money to
fund syringe-swapping groups. We say "ostensibly" because the
restrictions on where those organizations could operate are so broad
that they would effectively shut down the city's only program.

The House voted to end a 21-year-old ban and allow federal funding of
needle exchange programs. It also voted to allow the District to use
its own money for such a program. There's one catch: the programs
cannot be located "within 1,000 feet of a public or private day care
center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school,
college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool,
park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event
sponsored by any such entity." This would render whole sections of
cities off-limits. And it would effectively kill the District's one
needle exchange program. None of this is a done deal. The Senate
version of the bill doesn't have those onerous restrictions. When the
House and Senate meet in conference committee to hash out the final
legislation, this restrictive language must be removed.

Since the 1990s, studies have shown that needle exchange programs
work. They are effective in reducing the spread of HIV while not
increasing drug use. Just ask the learned people at the Centers for
Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the American
Medical Association and the World Health Organization. An 80 percent
reduction in the incidence of HIV in intravenous drug users over the
past 20 years can be attributed in part to needle exchange programs
funded by localities and private organizations, according to a 2008
report from the CDC.

Those still resistant to the facts should look at communities and
urban areas grappling with the HIV/AIDS epidemic to understand the
importance of making all possible funds available to effectively
fight the epidemic. They need only look out of their Washington
window. An astounding 3 percent of District residents are living with
HIV/AIDS. Intravenous drug use is the third-most-common mode of
transmission. "People have been playing politics with people's health
. . . for years," D.C. Councilmember David A. Catania (I-At Large)
told The Post. It's time for them to stop.