Colorado:
Needle
Exchange
Killed
in
Committee
--
Activists
Vow
Civil
Disobedience
if
Necessary
3/13/98
A bill which would have changed Colorado state law to allow legal syringe exchange has been killed in committee in the House on Monday (3/9). SB 99, which passed the through the Senate last week, was rejected by the House Education, Welfare and Institutions committee 7-4 in a vote which went straight party line with all 7 committee Republicans voting against. More than 50 witnesses offered more than 4 hours of testimony in what was described as a very emotional and combative hearing. Stu Van Maveren, Larimer County District Attorney testified against the bill saying "One of the deterrents (to IV drug use) is the fear of spread of disease. If you have clean needles, that fear is gone." Those testifying in favor included Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter, who told the committee that he had observed such programs elsewhere and "there is no downside here... You have the opportunity to save lives." (Van Maveren's comment is revealing about the prohibitionist mindset. He is in effect saying that drug users should gets AIDS and die -- and that the government should facilitate this by banning syringe exchange -- in order to discourage the use of drugs. - DB) The desire of Denver city officials to institute an exchange program was a catalyst for the inception of the bill. Several months ago, Denver's city council voted in favor of needle exchange, with the caveat that they would not institute a program until and unless the state law prohibiting them was changed. The city of Boulder has had needle exchange for ten years -- it is believed to have been the third such program in the nation at the time of its founding -- albeit the program still technically runs illegally. Boulder county officials have long allowed the program to operate. Monday's hearing came in the wake of threats made by State GOP Chairman Steve Curtis that any House Republican who voted in favor of the "un-Republican" bill would face party-funded opposition in their next primary. Curtis was roundly criticized for those comments by some GOPers, including State Senator Dave Wattenberg, a rancher, who called Curtis a "silly son-of-a-bitch". Whether or not the threat had any bearing on the vote is impossible to determine. In the wake of the defeat of SB 99, AIDS-prevention professionals in Denver have vowed to do whatever is necessary to make clean syringes available to IV drug users in that city. Paul Simons, Executive Director of People Engaged in Education and Reduction Strategies (PEERS) told The Week Online: "We have spoken with Bill Ritter (Denver's DA) who testified in favor of the bill, and, while he supports exchange, he has indicated that he will uphold the law as it stands. We intend, in the very near future, to sit down with the Mayor's staff to try and work out a compromise similar to what they have done in Boulder. If those talks are not fruitful, we'll have no choice but to expand syringe exchange in Denver this spring in an act of civil disobedience." Simons continued: "We have a statute on the books in Colorado which allows for a "lesser of evils" defense. There are people in Denver -- thousands of people -- who will be at serious risk of contracting AIDS, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases unless they have access to sterile syringes. We're confident that with all of the scientific evidence that is on our side, we would prevail in such a situation. The problem in this state is that there are a bunch of ideologues in the legislature who would be quite content to pay the bills for those dying of AIDS, whether that be for drug users, their partners, or their children, and to watch them die, rather than acknowledge that the facts don't jibe with their politics. It is horrifying, it is pathetic, and we are not going to stand for it." Articles in Colorado's largest newspapers covering the needle exchange defeat can be read online at http://www.denverpost.com/news/leg173.htm and http://InsideDenver.com/extra/legislature/0310need2.html. Letters to the editors can be submitted to [email protected] (Denver Post) and [email protected] (Rocky Mountain News). Be sure to and include your full name, home town and daytime phone number. Listings for many other Colorado newspapers online can be found by doing a Yahoo search on "Colorado media" and following the links. Please send DRCNet copies of your letters. Important stats on drug-related AIDS in Colorado can be found online at http://www.drcnet.org/AIDS/co_ban.html.
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