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Needle Exchange Programs Overruled ; Court Decision a Setback for HIV Prevention

Posted on: Wednesday, 17 August 2005, 15:01 CDT

AIDS treatment advocates were dealt a setback Tuesday when an appeals panel in Atlantic City ruled that New Jersey municipalities cannot run needle exchange programs because they would violate state drug laws.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge Appellate Division panel said people who distribute clean needles to intravenous drug users would be accomplices to crimes, unless the state Legislature changes the law.

The 16-page ruling, written by Judge Stephen Skillman, undercut an executive order issued last year by then-Gov. James E. McGreevey that declared AIDS a state public health emergency and approved the creation of needle exchange pilot programs in Atlantic City, Camden and a third, undetermined municipality.

The court acknowledged that studies have shown that such programs "serve a vital public interest" by reducing the spread of HIV and other blood-borne diseases without increasing illegal drug use, Skillman wrote.

But "Atlantic City and its employees are not exempt from the Code [of Criminal Justice] provisions prohibiting the possession, use and distribution of drugs and drug paraphernalia simply because they adopted a needle exchange program for beneficent reasons," he wrote.

State health officials would not comment Tuesday on the ruling.

"The matter is under review by the state Appellate Division," said Gretchen Michael, spokeswoman for the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services.

New Jersey had reported more than 64,000 cases of HIV and AIDS by last year, and the state had the fifth-highest rate of adult HIV cases in the country. Fifty-one percent of the cases - "significantly more than the national average" - were attributable to injection drug use, then-Health Commissioner Clifton R. Lacy said last year.

Assembly leader Joseph Roberts, D-Camden, noted at the time that New York and Pennsylvania had established such programs in 1992, and that in the succeeding 12 years, 14,000 New Jerseyans had died of AIDS, and 40,000 had contracted the virus.

Friends and foes of needle exchange reacted characteristically to Tuesday's ruling.

State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Woodbridge, said the court's decision was yet another reason that the Legislature should pass a bill that would establish municipal programs under which sterile syringes could be distributed.

"Everyone is for the idea of providing more prevention, but few legislators have stepped up and done it," said Vitale, who co- sponsored such a bill, but it has lacked the support necessary to bring it before the Senate for a full vote.

"Just because clean needles are available isn't going to make someone a drug addict," Vitale said. "You don't need a needle to become a drug addict."

Under Vitale's bill, syringe programs would be run by local departments of health, or a municipality could ask an AIDS service organization to do the job.

Assemblywoman Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, an advocate of needle exchange programs for more than a decade, said Tuesday's ruling should only be a temporary setback.

"I think we all need patience and willingness to move ahead in small steps in order to gain the larger goal," said Weinberg, who co- sponsored bills, passed by the Assembly, that would allow municipalities to set up exchange programs and permit pharmacies to sell as many as 10 syringes per customer over the counter.

Opponents cheered the ruling.

Assemblyman Joe Pennacchio, R-Morris Plains, said the decision is "a victory for the health and safety of New Jersey's citizens."

Needle exchange programs do not reduce the spread of disease, Pennacchio said.

"They only encourage drug addicts to continue this self- destructive behavior," he said.

Legislation is needed to provide more money for drug treatment, not to promote needle exchange, said state Sen. Ronald Rice, D- Newark, a longtime opponent of the programs.

"From Day One, I have argued that some drugs require the illegal use of paraphernalia, and that this ordinance and others like it help drug users break the law," Rice said.

Such programs keep addicts "hooked," and do not guard against potential overdosing, he added.

Rice joined other legislators in a lawsuit last year against McGreevey's executive order. That suit is pending.

Stephen Scheuermann, executive director of New Jersey Buddies, a Hackensack-based organization that provides assistance to about 300 AIDS patients each year, expressed disappointment at Tuesday's ruling.

"I guess changing the laws is the only way; you have to keep pushing for it," Scheurmann said.

Catherine Correa, director of the federal Ryan White Title One AIDS services program in Paterson, said she was "surprised."

"I was hopeful. I thought [McGreevey's order] was a good opportunity to have firsthand knowledge of the success or failure of such a project," Correa said.

Another supporter of the programs, Roseanne Scotti of Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey, said she hopes the issue goes to the state Supreme Court.

But "that decision could take another year. What will happen is people will continue sharing dirty needles ... and will continue to get infected," Scotti said.

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Fast facts

* Advocates say needle exchange programs slow the spread of AIDS.

* Foes say the programs promote drug use.

* Bills to establish needle exchange programs have passed the Assembly but not the Senate.

* More than half of HIV/AIDS cases in New Jersey have been linked to intravenous drug use.

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E-mail: groves@northjersey.com

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Source: Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.

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