PREVENTING AIDS PREVENTION

Congress and President Bush have done the right thing, lifting a
disastrous nine-year ban that prevented Washington from using locally
raised tax dollars on needle-exchange programs that help fight the
spread of AIDS. Unfortunately, that still leaves in force an even
broader and more damaging law that prohibits the use of federal funds
for needle-exchange programs in the United States or abroad.

That ban must also be rescinded.

The country's most important medical and public health organizations
endorsed needle-exchange programs more than a decade ago, and such
programs have proved highly successful all over the world. Opponents'
charges that needle exchanges would encourage addiction have turned
out to be nonsense.

Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic continues to spread, driven in part by
intravenous drug addicts who become infected when they share dirty
needles. They then pass H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, on to
wives and lovers and unborn children.

A recent report by the District of Columbia's health department found
that more than 20 percent of the city's AIDS cases could be traced to
intravenous drug users. The city, meanwhile, has the highest AIDS
rate in the nation, with 128.4 cases per 100,000 people, compared
with 14 cases per 100,000 in the country as a whole.

The number of cases is growing faster in Washington than in other
cities where needle-exchange programs have had more support. Barred
from using its own tax dollars, Washington was scraping by with a
privately funded program that reached only a small fraction of those
who need it.

First enacted by Congress 20 years ago, the prohibition against using
federal dollars for these crucial needle-exchange programs has
hobbled AIDS prevention efforts both in this country and abroad.
Health organizations using American tax dollars should be encouraged
rather than blocked from developing these programs.

Eliminating the federal ban would save many thousands of lives every year.