PROSECUTOR SUES OVER A.C. NEEDLE EXCHANGE

MAYS LANDING - Atlantic County Prosecutor Jeffrey S. Blitz filed a
lawsuit Wednesday asking the state Superior Court to prohibit Atlantic
City from implementing the state's first needle-exchange program,
which would allow city employees to hand out clean needles to drug
users in exchange for dirty ones.

Blitz filed the suit just two days after Mayor Lorenzo Langford signed
the ordinance. Audience members did not object last week when City
Council passed it on second reading.

The prosecutor has asked the court to hear the case before July 8,
when the bill would become law, but no official court date has been
set.

Blitz says the state's drug-paraphernalia laws prohibit people from
possessing hypodermic syringes without a prescription. If Atlantic
City gave drug users clean needles, it would contribute to the
violation of that law, he said.

"The law would not permit (the prosecutor) to turn a blind eye to
violations of ... narcotics paraphernalia offenses which the needle
exchange program would generate," Blitz said in court papers.

As a municipality, Atlantic City is an agent of the state and
therefore cannot ignore or violate its laws, he added.

Despite Blitz's interpretation of the law, city officials contend that
a 1999 amendment to the state's drug code protects it from criminal
liability if it hands out hypodermic syringes.

"It's going to come down to how the judge interprets the statutes,"
City Council Solicitor Daniel Gallagher said. "We believe the statutes
can be interpreted to allow municipalities to do this."

It's unclear who will represent the city in this matter. City Council
is not listed on the lawsuit as a defendant.

City Solicitor Beverly Graham-Foy has said publicly that the
prosecutor's interpretation of the law is correct, which is contrary
to the mayor's position.

"You give your client advice, but they want you to pursue their
position anyway," Graham-Foy said. "Obviously it's my duty to
represent the city."

Roseanne Scotti, director of Drug Policy Alliance of New Jersey and a
vehement supporter of the needle-exchange program, said she and her
colleagues are putting together a legal team to represent the city if
it chooses to take that route.

Health and Human Services Director Ronald Cash, who spearheaded the
needle-exchange program from the start, thinks it's a good idea for
the Drug Policy Alliance to assist the city.

"We can use all the legal help we can get, particularly with people
who have dealt with this before," he said.

Scotti said Wednesday that she was surprised the prosecutor would take
such a strong stance against these programs. That's because when
governing bodies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh decided to start
needle exchange a few years ago, state and county officials did not
step in - they let the municipalities determine their own
public-health policies, she said.

By contrast, when a governing body in Spokane, Wash., established a
needle-exchange program, state and county officials challenged it, but
lost after the matter went to the state's high court, she said.

"The importance of public health applies here," Scotti said. "(New
Jersey's) rate of infection related to injection is two times the
national average."

New Jersey also has the fifth-highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the
country. It has the third-highest number of infected children and the
highest number of women in the country walking around with HIV/AIDS,
Scotti said.

In Atlantic City, one in 40 residents is infected with HIV, with more
than half contracting the disease through shared needles. The rate
among black males, one in 32, is the highest in the state.

Blitz said lawmakers would have to change state law for New Jersey
cities to implement needle-exchange programs. Camden City Council is
set to pass a similar needle-exchange ordinance on second reading today.

Although some state legislators have verbally supported the programs
introduced in Atlantic City and Camden, none has aggressively pushed a
bill through.

"That's because injection-drug users are the lepers, so to speak, of
this day and age," Scotti said. "They don't have political clout. Poor
injection-drug users don't vote and they don't give financial
contributions."