DRUG RULE HURTS EPIDEMIC

Your article on the AIDS epidemic, "AIDS transforming societies, families,"
describes the tragedy and threat of this disease: 60 million infected, 22
million dead, and no end in sight. It mentions only one cause for this
explosive spread, the correct one: sharing unsterile needles. The article
does not mention the United States' role in perpetuating this crisis.
Heroin use is sweeping the undeveloped world, up 300 percent since 1990.
Unsterile needles are used hundreds of times. Dozens of cities in Asia and
now in South America, Africa, and Eastern Europe have gone from having no
HIV infection among injecting drug users to having 80 percent infected 18
months later. Female sexual partners are infected next, then their infants.
Then it's too late. Dr. Ernest Drucker, professor of epidemiology at Albert
Einstein College of Medicine and an expert on the global AIDS crisis,
maintains that additional outbreaks can be stopped for less than $1 per
person by providing sterile needles to addicts.

The United Nations Drug Control Program, which is controlled by the United
States, does not even mention needle exchange programs in its AIDS
prevention documents. The United States, influenced primarily by Sen. Jesse
Helms, forbids the use of any of its U.N. contributions for sterile
injecting equipment for addicts. This is in direct contradiction to
American Medical Association recommendations that call for extensive use of
needle exchange programs.

Your article quotes Jenny Marcus of the Community AIDS Response as saying,
"We need a mighty miracle." We don't need a miracle. We need a rational
drug policy.

Suzanne Wills,
Drug Policy Forum of Texas,
Dallas