STICKING POINT

Robberies Highlight Downside Of Syringe Access

Since a Boston activist group descended on Worcester's Main South
neighborhood in 1990 to pass out hypodermic syringes to drug addicts,
"needle exchange" in its various forms has been a contentious issue.

The central question remains: Do the potential benefits, such as
slowing the spread of disease via needle-sharing, justify the
potential harm, such as enabling addiction and supplying non-addicts
with the tools with which they might get hooked?

The latest wrinkle is legislation that would allow over-the-counter
purchase of hypodermic syringes without a prescription by persons
age 18 or older. The House passed the bill and sent it to the Senate.

Recent robberies in which store clerks were threatened with syringes
purportedly containing HIV-tainted blood have given proponents second
thoughts. The Senate was poised to act last week when news broke of
a robbery of a Worcester convenience store by a syringe-wielding thief.

The use of a syringe as a weapon gave pause to state Sen. Harriette
L. Chandler, a supporter of over-the-counter needle sales. She hopes
to amend the bill to include tougher penalties for such misuse of syringes.

Whether that is anything more than window dressing is an open
question. Moreover, the over-the-counter-sales debate strikes us as
something of a sideshow. Most states already allow over-the-counter
syringe sales, but incontrovertible evidence of benefit or harm is
hard to come by.

If such measures give policy-makers a false sense of accomplishment,
they are counterproductive. The only sure way to stop the spread of
hepatitis, HIV and the like among addicts is to stop their risky
behaviors - namely, intravenous drug abuse and needle-sharing.

The way to accomplish that is not to make needles accessible, but to
make timely, effective addiction treatment accessible.

Lawmakers can help in two ways: Work to provide adequate funding for
treatment and, when treatment programs are proposed, resist the
temptation to cave in to constituents' not-in-my-back-yard impulses.