DONE DEAL

The District Can Finally Use Its Own Money for Needle-Exchange Programs.

FOR NEARLY 10 years, Congress prevented the District of Columbia from
using its own money to fund needle-exchange programs, interventions
that greatly reduce the risk for intravenous drug users of
contracting or spreading HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The
obstruction ended with passage this week of the omnibus budget bill.

The ban had been in place since 1998, when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.)
attached a rider to the District's budget that prevented the District
from spending even its own funds to save lives. The provision
survived every attempt to remove it. But with Democrats now in
charge, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Rep. Jose E. Serrano
(D-N.Y.) succeeded in stripping the language from legislation.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty promises that he will waste no time in taking
advantage of the opportunity once President Bush signs the budget
bill. Prevention Works!, which is the city's sole needle-exchange
program and has struggled to raise private funds, will get an
immediate infusion of cash. And a request for proposals will be
issued to local health-care, substance-abuse and HIV-AIDS agencies to
create more programs that will reach out to intravenous drug users
and get them into treatment.

That it took this long is a travesty. HIV-AIDS is ravaging this city.
A recent HIV-AIDS epidemiology report issued by the District showed
that intravenous drug use was the third most common mode of
transmission of the virus. All told, the District has 128.4 AIDS
cases per 100,000 people, higher than the rates in New York,
Baltimore, Philadelphia and every other American city. With its new
authority, the District has another weapon in its uphill battle
against this disease with no cure.