MATTER OF LIFE, DEATH IN D.C.

THE nation's capital, Washington, D.C., has a dubious distinction. It
is also the capital of AIDS infections, with the highest rate of AIDS
of any major U.S. city, according to a recent report.

There is another shameful fact about Washington that logic suggests
may be linked to the first. For the past nine years, until reason
prevailed last week and the law was changed, Washington was the only
American city specifically barred by federal legislation from using
local funds for programs that provide clean syringes to drug users -
a widely accepted strategy to combat the spread of HIV and AIDS.

Unfortunately, since 1998, Congress wouldn't accept the public health
benefits of needle-exchange programs that have proved effective
elsewhere. And, with its paternalistic oversight of the city's budget
spending, myopic members of Congress were in a position to indulge
their biases. Two conservative Republicans were able to insert
language barring needle exchanges, on the theory that providing clean
needles to users contributes to the drug problem and does not curb
the spread of infection.

This folly, which effectively trumped a public-health approach with
one of moralistic disapproval, has proved in practice a prescription
for disaster for many residents of Washington and their families. The
city's African-American population has been particularly hard-hit by
the epidemic, with HIV and AIDS spreading fastest among black women.

It would be nice to think that these grim facts were decisive in
stripping the law of the odious prohibition against needle exchanges.
Instead, the change in the law owes more to a change in the
leadership of Congress. Because Democrats were prepared to face
reality at the intersection of compassion and common sense, President
Bush was sent a budget bill that allowed the city to use its own
funds for needle exchange programs. On Wednesday, to his credit, Mr.
Bush signed the bill.

Washington officials hailed the ban's defeat as a real life-saver and
announced that $1 million would be earmarked for the program in 2008.
The Democratic-controlled Congress can't claim a long list of great
achievements since taking up the reins of power, but little things
can make a big difference.

This was one. A blow was struck for good sense in a matter of life and death.