Governor breaks with state agency on needles

Governor Mitt Romney broke with his own Department of Public Health last night and opposed legalizing over-the-counter sales of hypodermic needles, even as top law-enforcement authorities for the first time gave robust support to a measure that aims to prevent infectious disease by putting clean syringes into the hands of drug addicts.

The proposed legislation has long been championed by public health advocates, infectious disease doctors, and substance-abuse specialists, who maintain that it would reduce the spread of HIV, hepatitis C, and other blood-borne infections.

In Massachusetts, 39 percent of HIV cases are linked to sharing tainted drug needles, and this is one of just three states that do not permit the sale of hypodermics without a prescription.

The state Department of Public Health provided testimony yesterday supporting needle sales, but a Romney spokesman said last night that the governor does not agree with the health agency's position. While stressing the opposition of Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said that it was ''too early in the process" to say that the governor would veto a needle sale law if it reaches his desk.

''The position of the governor and the lieutenant governor is we don't want to do anything that facilitates illegal drug use," Fehrnstrom said. ''If you allow addicts easy access to the tools of the trade, you are facilitating illegal drug use."

Until now, prosecutors and top police officials have either actively opposed over-the-counter availability of hypodermics or remained silent, a position that contributed to the bill's repeated failure to win passage during the past decade.

But during a Beacon Hill hearing yesterday, two district attorneys -- Martha Coakley of Middlesex County and Daniel F. Conley of Suffolk County -- described in sometimes impassioned tones the evolution of their philosophy regarding the legalization of the sale of hypodermics.

The prosecutors, along with a representative of Boston Police Commissioner Kathleen M. O'Toole, told members of the Joint Committee on Public Health that while they once viewed the needle issue through the prism of the war on drugs, they now view it as much more integral to the war on AIDS.

A sponsor of the needle sale legislation, Senator Robert O'Leary, said the backing of the district attorneys as well as police authorities could prove to be a signal moment in the campaign to legalize the sale of hypodermic needles.

''It's critical; it's absolutely critical," said O'Leary, a Democrat who represents parts of Cape Cod and the Islands. ''The problem has been you can't get beyond that first sentence: AIDS, needles, drugs. Once you get beyond that, people see the value of it."

Conley said that when he looks at the issue of substance abuse, he finds himself straddling a dichotomy. On one side, he said, are dealers, whom he described as ''vile and despicable."

''The other side of the equation is the drug user," Conley said. ''If we deny them a clean needle, they're going to use a dirty one, and they're going to infect themselves and others. How can we, as an enlightened and compassionate society, tolerate that?"

Before deciding to endorse the measure, Coakley said, she canvassed police officials in her district and discovered uniform support for legalizing hypodermic needle sales.

More specifically, she asked Cambridge police authorities if drug-related crimes had increased since that city became one of four in the mid-1990s to adopt a needle exchange program. The answer from Cambridge: No, there was no indication that the needle exchanges resulted in more criminal activity.

The law enforcement authorities said that police officers had told them that if needles became legal, they believed that addicts would be less likely to attempt to hide syringes, which would reduce prospects that an officer could be pricked by a needle.

The proposed law includes a provision designed to ensure that diabetics and other patients with medical conditions requiring the use of hypodermic needles will continue to have their syringes covered under health insurance plans.

Public health authorities told lawmakers that studies had demonstrated conclusively that both the use of dirty needles and the number of HIV cases related to illicit drug injections dropped significantly in states that allow over-the-counter sales.

In Connecticut, for example, one survey found that the segment of drug addicts using tainted needles plummeted from 71 percent to 29 percent after the sale of hypodermics without a prescription became legal in the 1990s.

Veterans of the quest to legalize needle sales in Massachusetts said that they believe the measure will find a more welcoming environment this year, in large part because of the departure of Thomas M. Finneran, a social conservative, from the House speaker's post.

A spokeswoman for Senate President Robert E. Travaglini said he had not taken a position on the needle legislation. A spokeswoman for House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said he had not yet reviewed the proposal.

Members of the Public Health Committee, who did not vote on the legislation yesterday, appeared to favor it overwhelmingly.

Yesterday's hearing was held a week after the town of Westport was thrown into turmoil after the Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to start a needle exchange program.

That decision, as recounted by a Westport selectman who came to testify yesterday, was reversed three days later when a throng confronted selectmen on the steps of Town Hall.

''If the Legislature steps up to the plate," said Senator Susan C. Fargo, a Lincoln Democrat, ''we can make the lives of you and other selectmen a little easier."

Stephen Smith can be reached at stsmith@globe.com.