AEGiS-APPJ: Fundamental Limitations of Needle-Exchange Programs as a Strategy for HIV Prevention among IVDUs in the US: The Experience and Policy Implications of the Needle-Exchange Pilot Program in New York City

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1991. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Fundamental Limitations of Needle-Exchange Programs as a Strategy for HIV Prevention among IVDUs in the US: The Experience and Policy Implications of the Needle-Exchange Pilot Program in New York City

AIDS & Public Policy Journal 6, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 116-20
Daniel Fernando

My ethnographic experience among IVDUs has clearly demonstrated that needle sharing is driven by the legal restrictions on access to sterile syringes and the criminalization of drug paraphernalia possession, which limit the supply and raise the price of syringes in the illegal market. This forces IVDUs to use any available needle at the time of purchase of drugs. This has also been clearly underlined in ethnographically based research in the United States. I have described my ethnographic findings elsewhere. Based on these findings, I have strongly advocated the abolition of legal restrictions on access to sterile syringes and the decriminalization of drug paraphernalia possession as a specific strategy of HIV prevention among IVDUs.
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