The New York Times - Sunday, December 1, 1985
David Bird

The New York State Health Commissioner has told a Congressional committee that there has been "precious little success" in curbing the spread of AIDS through addicts who inject drugs. He said this "may now harbor the greatest AIDS potential" in the state.

The statements by the Commissioner, Dr. David Axelrod, at a hearing in Manhattan last week drew sharp questions from legislators who wanted to know why, in the face of what appeared to be an epidemic, he was not providing addicts with free, single-use needles to replace those used communally.

Needles passed from person to person have been shown to be a means of transmitting AIDS, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

Dr, Axelrod said there was no indication that providing clean, single-use needles would mean that drug addicts would use them. He said the sharing of needles was "a pattern of social behavior that is hard to break" among drug addicts. He also said that providing free needles could put the state in a position of encouraging drug addiction.

Dr. Axelrod spoke on Tuesday at the hearing of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control, whose chairman is Representative Charles B. Rangel, a Manhattan Democrat. The hearing focused on drugs in the New York City area and the relationship of intravenous drug abuse to AIDS.

'Shooting Galleries'

The Health Commissioner's position on needles was backed at the hearing by Benjamin Ward, the city's Police Commissioner, and Sterling Johnson Jr., the city's Special Narcotics Prosecutor. Both men said that in raids on "shooting galleries," where addicts gather to inject drugs, there often would be packets of clean, single-use needles lying around while the addicts used a common dirty needle.

Mr. Johnson said there was a moral question about a government providing needles for an illegal activity. Governments, he said, might "provide field glasses to Peeping Toms under the same rationale."

A common thread of agreement emerged at the hearing among the members of Congress and the health and enforcement officers that education was the key to stopping drug addiction.

But several legislators voiced anger at the lack of drive for adequate educational programs.

'Absence of Leadership'

Representative James H. Scheuer, a Queens Democrat, charged that the state had an "absence of leadership and drive and commitment and energy at the top levels from the point of view of prevention and education."

"Storm into the Governor's office and bang on the table," Mr. Scheuer told Dr. Axelrod. "Health education in schools is a vitally important part of your mission."

Dr. Axelrod said his office was working on a new curriculum to include the latest problems of narcotics addiction and AIDS.

A Pilot Project

Commissioner Ward said the Police Department and the city's Board of Education had started an educational program in the fifth and sixth grades using police officers "to teach students to say no to drugs."

He said the pilot project had been "enormously successful" and had been expanded from to seven school districts from the original two.

But, the Commissioner said, the program has been hampered by insufficient funds. He said he had to use educational films from California that had palm trees in the backgrounds because he did not have the money to shoot film footage of the inner city.

"I had to tell the kids," Mr. Ward said, "that drug abuse doesn't just happen under palm trees."

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