RISING AIDS RATE NOT UNIQUE

Editor:

We at Positive Living North West appreciate the prominent coverage
given by The Interior News, Sept. 21 edition, to the issue of HIV in
Smithers and the North.

It's particularly important as the Interweave Projects' - Developing a
Smithers HIV Response Plan, core working group made up of social
service agencies are coming together to improve HIV prevention, care
and support services in our community.

However, your editorial, 'More needles is not the answer' demands
comment, as it links rising numbers of needles exchanged with rising
HIV rates, and goes on to discount, as a "bandage solution," this
critical means of preventing new infections.

Increasing use of needle exchanges does not signal rising HIV rates,
or even prove rising drug use. What can be concluded is that the
needle exchange is being used more intensively by persons affected by
injection drug use: a population which could be increasing, or staying
the same but using needle exchange services more.

People take up injection drug use, and develop addictions, for complex
reasons which are deeply rooted in social problems. The availability
of clean needles is not one of them. No credible evidence supports the
idea that that funding needle exchanges promotes drug use, or that
exchanging needles contributes to rising HIV rates. On the other hand,
a huge body of published, peer-reviewed medical literature proves that
needle exchanges are extremely effective at preventing new infections,
and are an important component of-and not a replacement for-an
effective HIV prevention strategy.

You characterize funding for these services as "throwing money into
the needle/sex/HIV cycle," but also state "that all is well and good,
until the free needle or condom isn't immediately available." This
latter statement actually supports, rather than refutes, the need for
making condoms and clean needles readily available.

Your next statement, "we doubt that many users are predisposed to plan
ahead,' also flies in the face of the evidence. That needles are being
exchanged at all, and in the numbers we are seeing, irrefutably
demonstrates that users are absolutely capable and predisposed to
planning ahead. Why else would they be turning in their used needles,
for clean ones to take home?

This problem is not unique to Smithers, but demands exactly the
multi-disciplinary, broad-based response that Project Interweave is
all about.

Tamara Macleod

Interweave Project Coordinator