Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Thursday, October 30, 1997 - 8:59 PM EST
According to the Louis Harris survey, Americans are fairly evenly split on whether they support needle exchange programs, but 71 percent agree that state and city governments should make the decision on how to use federal funding for HIV prevention programs.
Federal law bans the use of federal funding for needle exchange programs, which critics say makes using illegal drugs more attractive. Numerous studies have concluded that the programs reduce the spread of HIV and do not encourage drug use.
The poll found that 44 percent of Americans favor needle exchange programs, while 42 percent oppose them.
After being told that the American Medical Association, the National Academy of Sciences, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health organizations support needle exchange programs, few of the people polled changed their minds.
The number who said they favored the programs rose to 50 percent, but 45 percent said they were opposed.
The telephone poll, which surveyed 1,003 adults between Oct. 15 and 19, was commissioned by the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy research institute that is a project of the Open Society Institute. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
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