Needles and AIDS
12/2/2003
WHEN IT COMES to fighting deadly infectious diseases like AIDS and hepatitis C, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino gets it in a way that many elected officials don't. The mayor chose yesterday, World AIDS Day, to publicize his support of state legislation to legalize the sale of hypodermic needles without a doctor's prescription. Legalization would make it much easier for addicts to use uncontaminated needles when injecting drugs. By making it difficult for drug users to get such needles, the state doesn't keep them from taking narcotics; it just raises the chances that they will use contaminated needles and contract a blood-borne disease. Massachusetts is just one of four states that still require a prescription for needle sales.
Menino has a long and solid record of supporting AIDS-prevention measures. As a city councilor in the early 1990s, he was a leader in efforts to establish the state's first needle-exchange program in Boston. The program, which now has 2,000 clients a year, supplies clean needles in exchange for used ones and also offers counseling and education to steer addicts toward rehabilitation. About 20 percent of the program's clients go into rehab.
Unfortunately, just three communities besides Boston have such programs -- Cambridge, Provincetown, and Northampton. Cities like Worcester and Springfield, with large numbers of intravenous drug users, should join them. However, current state law gives local elected officials the right to block proposals for needle exchange programs by state health authorities. In communities without exchanges, authorizing nonprescription sales at least would provide drug users a legal way to get syringes that won't expose them to infection. The bill backed by Menino includes a provision requiring that each needle packet include an educational insert on the proper use of needles, the danger of blood-borne diseases, and help-line numbers for both AIDS and substance abuse. After Connecticut took this step in the 1990s, the percentage of drug users who reported sharing needles during a 30-day period dropped by 40 percent, according to a study done for the Drug Policy Alliance, a drug-policy reform organization. The state also reported a 66 percent decrease in needle-stick injuries to police officers during a six-month period. Critics of both legalization of syringes and needle exchange programs say they encourage drug abuse, but studies have indicated this is not the case. Most drug addicts are not the sort to be deterred for long by a health threat.
Legalization of syringe purchases deserves especially high priority at a time when state budget cuts have forced reductions in other AIDS prevention programs. Even needle exchange programs are relatively low-cost -- Boston's costs just $125,000 a year. The Legislature should take the mayor's advice and legalize over-the-counter purchases of needles.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
With the presidential palace of La Moneda at rear, 1,000 volunteers dressed in red stand forming the bow symbol of the campaign against AIDS, marking World AIDS day, in Santiago, Chile.
