GROUP FIGHTS HIV BY GIVING DRUG ADDICTS CLEAN SYRINGES

HIGH POINT -- Stephen Daniels walks through the brush below the overpass in
a run-down east High Point neighborhood. His dusty Reebok sneaker sifts
through the empty beer cans and lighters, the occasional needle cap and
tourniquet.

He's looking for used syringes -- the ones used by addicts who sneak under
the overpass for their vein-punching fix.

Daniels knows where they live, where they go and where their trash ends up.
He used to be one of them. His addiction introduced him to a needle that
gave him HIV. That's why he's on a mission.

"These are people I used to get high with. These are my friends that
decided to stay in 'the life,'" Daniels says. "I love these guys, but not
enough to kill myself with them."

That's why Daniels joined The Wright Focus Group. The High Point-based
nonprofit organization runs a needle exchange program, one that enables
injection drug users to exchange used syringes for new, uninfected ones.
The 4-year-old program is illegal under the statewide drug paraphernalia
statutes -- a Class 1 misdemeanor -- but the group's workers say they'll
keep breaking the law, so long as they can keep another junkie from
contracting HIV.

"There's a need for it in the community," Thelma Wright, the group's
founder, said. "It's not like we're trying to break the law."

Wright started the exchange in 1999 after two AIDS deaths in Guilford
County. The deaths were blamed on infection from used needles. "I knew that
sharing of needles was one of the modes of transmission of HIV," Wright
said. "No one else was willing to step up to the plate to provide (needle
exchange) service."

Injection drug use has become the second most common way Americans contract
HIV/AIDS. It accounts for 25 percent of the estimated 40,000 new cases
every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in
Atlanta.

Guilford County's rate of new HIV infections is much higher than state and
national averages. According to data from the Guilford Department of
Health, there were 26 new cases of HIV per 100,000 Guilford County
residents in 2001, double North Carolina's average rate that year.

But in 2002, only two new HIV cases were reported in Guilford County from
injection drugs. That is a small percentage of the county's more than 5,000
estimated injection drug users.

A spokeswoman for N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper's office said it would
be up to the local district attorney to prosecute violations -- including
needle exchange programs -- of the paraphernalia statutes.

"It bothers me greatly that someone would actively seek to commit a crime,"
said Guilford County District Attorney Stuart Albright. But an arrest would
have to be made for Albright to make a decision to prosecute.

Nationally, needle exchange programs do not often come under prosecution,
said Scott Burris, a law professor at Temple University in Philadelphia and
an expert on needle exchange law. Burris said prosecutors often leave
programs alone and "rather spend their law enforcement resources where
there's more bang-for-the-buck."

Burris said there is also a political belief that people who support needle
exchange might outnumber those who don't, providing more incentive to let
programs slide.

HIV risk is highest in the mostly black neighborhoods of High Point and
Greensboro where The Wright Focus Group works. Daniels believes he can help
by freeing addicts from having to choose a dirty needle to satisfy their
addictions.

It's a fine line to walk -- trying to clean up the drug community without
looking like a pusher. And it's a line that the North Carolina Family
Policy Council has taken an active stance against.

The Raleigh-based group is opposed to North Carolina needle exchanges, not
only because they break the law, but also because they are "facilitating
the addicts of an addictive and illegal lifestyle," said John Rustin,
council spokesman.

"Simply by fostering the continuation of their addiction to use those
illegal drugs first of all sends in a message that condones their
behavior," Rustin added.

He said that a better solution would be to teach abstinence from drugs and sex.

Daniels counters: "We do not promote substance abuse by no means. The sole
purpose of this kit is to slow down HIV. That's it. I'm not hanging around
no junior high schools trying to solicit new injection drug users."

The Wright Focus Group is not alone in its mission.

The privately funded group began with a donation from the Needle Exchange
Program of Asheville, which has been in operation since 1994.

Michael Harney and Marty Prairie, two AIDS activists, started the program
after they noticed needles on Asheville streets.

The two lobbied to make their program above the board. But the last three
bills that would make needle exchange programs legal in North Carolina
never made it to the floor in the General Assembly.

"If we know the use ... of dirty needles between drug users is a way to
transmit HIV the question is: How do we address that and eradicate the
threat," said state Rep. Thomas Wright, a sponsor of two of the bills.

Wright, D-Wilmington, said needle exchange programs protect the community
from a public health threat, and many of his colleagues who were worried
about condoning drug use "had their head in the sand."

Michael Harney agrees.

"It's the legal side of things ... that really don't see it. They don't see
it as a harm reduction effort," Harney said.

Nationally, there are 178 known exchange programs in 36 states, Puerto Rico
and Washington, D.C. Only 40 percent are protected by law, said David
Purchase, head of the North American Syringe Exchange Network, a loose web
of programs that trade advice and techniques for running needle exchange
programs.

"North Carolina should have syringe exchange program in every urban
center," Purchase said.

Back in High Point, Daniels drives around a parking lot waiting for
clients. Users on the street know him. Daniels parks his Jeep, which is
loaded with bottles of water, condoms and needle kits.

Larry, a 52-year-old heroin addict who declined to give his last name,
takes a kit of five needles and stuffs it into a crumpled white paper bag.

At first, Larry said, his drug use was recreational. "A weekend warrior,
you know. Then it became Friday. Then it became Sunday. Then it became
Monday. Then Tuesday, and then it went on and on and on."

Before the Wright program came about, Larry said, he would buy used needles
from people with diabetes and new ones from drug stores.

Tony and Jack, two former heroin addicts who also declined to give their
last names, watched Daniels from a curb across the street. Both said that
when they were on heroin, if they were desperate, they would use old
needles or share them.

"If you've got to cut the vein and find some way to pour it in there,
you're going to get it in there," Tony said.

Jack was lucky. He kicked the habit two years ago and didn't turn up HIV
positive. But Tony suffers from full-blown AIDS, which he caught from an
infected needle.

So, Daniels continues his mission.

In a pile of broken malt liquor bottles, he finds a used syringe. Soon, he
finds several more. After he picks up the needles and disposes of them in a
biohazard container, he drives to his next stop. But he'll be back the next
day. Everyday.

"I work just like I used to use (drugs)," Daniels said. "The disease don't
take no vacations ... no days off, no vacation."