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New
Jersey
Governor-Elect
Calls
for
Needle
Exchange,
Cites
Battle
Against
AIDS
1/11/02
In a remarkable shift from the policies
of his Republican predecessors, incoming Democratic New Jersey governor
James E. McGreevey told a Tuesday news conference that the time had come
to give free needles to injection drug users as a means of combating AIDS.
But McGreevey then qualified that statement, adding that he wanted to first
try "a hospital-based pilot program, which represents a prudent interim
step," the Associated Press Reported.
Under former Republican Gov. Christine
Todd Whitman, now administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,
the state government routinely ignored the pleas of her own AIDS advisory
council to implement needle exchange programs, and instead banned them.
That ban was briefly challenged by the Chai Project, whose personnel distributed
syringes in New Brunswick and suffered arrests and prosecutions from 1996-1998
before ceasing that aspect of their program (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/071.html#sentenced).
In addition to banning needle exchanges,
state law also makes it a crime to obtain a syringe without a prescription.
As a result of such policies, New Jersey is one of the few states where
injection drug use is the leading cause of HIV infections. According
to a 1999 report published by the Dogwood Center, a Princeton-based independent
nonprofit research organization concerned with AIDS and social justice,
New Jersey ranked fifth in the nation in having the highest rate of drug
injection-related AIDS cases. It trailed only New York, Delaware,
Maryland, and Connecticut (http://www.dogwoodcenter.org/top/topview.html).
While early reaction has been muted as
interested parties wait to see what to see McGreevey's words translated
into policy, Dawn Day, director of the Dogwood Center, expressed guarded
optimism. "I think this is a good thing," she told DRCNet. "But I
do have some concerns about this being based in hospitals. If the
administration of an exchange program were at a hospital, that's one thing,
but we need to have those vans going out into the community where the people
are."
-- END --
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Issue #219, 1/11/02
Editorial: A Line in the Sand | New California Bill Would Mandate 90-Day Minimum Jail Term for Being Under Ecstasy's Influence | Agenda for 2002, and DRCNet Monthly Donor Program Update | New Jersey Governor-Elect Calls for Needle Exchange, Cites Battle Against AIDS | Colombia Peace Process Collapses While Second Presidential Candidate Decries Failed Drug Policies | Supreme Court to Hear Public Transit Search Case, Bush Administration Invokes Terror War to Support Drug War Measure | Brazil Joins Ranks of Drug Reform Nations, Users to Avoid Jail Under New Law | Hemp Industry Takes DEA to Court Over Hemp Food Ban, Urges 9th Circuit to Throw Out DEA Interpretative Rule | Gettman-High Times Marijuana Rescheduling Action Heads for Federal Court, Latest Turn in Glacially-Paced Legal Battle | What Drug-Terror Link? Drug Money Not Mentioned as Feds End Investigation of September 11 Finances | Montana Sets Drug Policy Task Force -- No Dopers Need Apply | Internships at DRCNet | Alerts: Ecstasy Bills, HEA Drug Provision, Bolivia, DEA Hemp Ban, Mandatory Minimums, Medical Marijuana | The Reformer's Calendar
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