Wrong Message

ADDICTS NEED TREATMENT, NOT ACCESS TO NEEDLES

Beacon Hill lawmakers appear poised to approve a bill to allow
over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles to intravenous drug abusers.
That would be a serious mistake.

Like needle giveaways and needle exchanges, this proposal to make drug
addicts ' "works" as easily accessible as aspirin or chewing gum is apt to
do far more harm than good.

To be sure, the measure allows compassionate lawmakers to feel they are
doing something to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne diseases.

But statistics on the effectiveness of such programs - gleaned largely from
self-reporting by addicts, extrapolations from public health data and
advocates' estimates - are controversial, to say the least. Anecdotal
success stories seldom, if ever, include consideration of the impact of the
implicit message that IV drug abuse is "officially" condoned. And the
statistics don't factor in the risk that more young people may be inclined
to "experiment" with IV drug abuse if the tools, guaranteed clean, are
easily available.

Currently, syringes are sold legally only by prescription to individuals,
such as diabetics, who must give themselves injections at home.

Make no mistake: Disease from IV drug use is a serious concern. About
one-third of all AIDS cases in Massachusetts were transmitted through
shared needles. For some IV drug abusers, clean needles might at least
delay infection with blood-borne diseases.

But the problem is not access to clean needles, but addicts' high-risk
behaviors. A clean needle becomes a dirty needle after one use; it takes
only one needle-sharing lapse for an addict to become infected.

Lawmakers' focus on access to hypodermic needles and syringes has the
unintended consequence of shifting the debate away from a more critical
issue: scarcity of anti-addiction treatment, counseling and education for
IV drug abusers.

The way to stop the spread of AIDS via intravenous drug abuse is not
improving access to needles but improving access to the treatment to kick
the habit.