JUDGE BACKS DRUG USERS IN NEEDLE-EXCHANGE PLANS

A federal judge in Manhattan ruled Wednesday that the police department may
not arrest drug addicts who are carrying syringes containing drug residue
if the addicts are participating in a needle exchange program. The ruling
stemmed from a lawsuit that accused police of wrongly arresting program
participants, while confiscating and destroying the cards they were
carrying to identify them as members of a needle exchange program. In
defending the suit, the city said that police had legitimate reasons for
making the arrests, and it denied wrongdoing by the officers.

Advocates who say the programs have become a crucial means of reducing HIV
among addicts hailed the ruling. The city was considering what action it
might take in light of the ruling.

New York, like other states, had carved out an exception to its drug
paraphernalia laws to allow addicts registered with the programs to carry
syringes without being arrested. "It would be bizarre," District Judge
Robert W. Sweet wrote, "to conclude that the legislative intent was to
permit the creation of needle exchange programs in order to remove dirty
needles, while at the same time frustrating that goal by making the
essential steps of participation criminal."

One of the plaintiff's lawyers, Corinne A. Carey of the Urban Justice
Center, said the ruling "is telling the police department that even though
people are drug users, they still have a right to protect their own health
and the health of their community." Daliah Heller, executive director of
CitiWide Harm Reduction, which runs a needle exchange program in South
Bronx, said the ruling would help prevent the spread of HIV "because people
won't have fear, we hope, once we get the word out on the street, of
carrying used syringes with them."