Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
San Francisco Chronicle; Saturday, April 18, 1998
Louis Freedberg, Chronicle Washington Bureau
As one Republican lawmaker said he would introduce legislation on Monday to reimpose a moratorium on the use of federal funds for such programs, advocates of needle exchange programs privately expressed concern that the criticism might lead the administration to lose its nerve and ultimately leave the ban in place.
The chorus of opposition suggests that Republicans will try to make the ban a major campaign issue if it is lifted.
"Our message on drug use ought to be clear and unambiguous -- not a wink and a nod and `I would have inhaled if I could have,' " said Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson, a clear reference to President Clinton.
Nicholson said using federal funds for needle exchanges amounts "to giving aid and comfort to the enemy in the war on drugs."
Senator Paul Coverdell, R-Ga., who initiated a program in his home state called Operation Drug Free Georgia and who is a prominent voice in the effort to curb international drug sales, said he will introduce legislation that would bar Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala from lifting the ban even if she wanted to.
"I find it difficult to comprehend how we can ask other nations to help us in our fight when at home we are handing out free needles in our neighborhoods to drug addicts," Coverdell wrote in a letter he sent to President Clinton in Chile, where the president is attending a summit meeting of 34 Latin American leaders. "By allowing taxpayer dollars to subsidize these programs, we are de facto decriminalizing intravenous drug use."
To buttress their arguments, critics cited the opposition of retired General Barry McCaffrey, President Clinton's "drug czar," to needle exchange programs. Some argued that it was a moral decision as well a question of policy.
"Needle exchange is a terrible and morally indefensible policy," said William Bennett, executive director of Empower America and a former drug czar in the Reagan administration. "The problem isn't dirty needles, the problem is heroin and drug addiction."
And Robert Maginnis of the Family Research Council, another leading conservative organization, said lifting the ban would be a "national disgrace."
"It promotes a culture of death by condemning addicts to the killing fields of heroin," he said.
To blunt some of the criticism, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown sent a letter co-signed by mayors of five cities, including Baltimore and Detroit, to Shalala yesterday.
"We are not requesting additional federal funding for needle exchanges," the mayors wrote. "We are simply asking the federal government to allow local governments the discretion to use existing federal funding for HIV prevention to support needle programs in our cities."
Nationally, about 100 communities operate their own needle exchange programs without using federal funds. San Francisco runs the largest program, handing out 2.2 million needles each year, using private and city funds.
Numerous reports prepared for the nation's leading scientific organizations have concluded that needle exchange programs help prevent the spread of AIDS and do not encourage drug use.
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