Feature:
New
Jersey
Judge
Stops
Needle
Exchange
in
Its
Tracks
6/24/05
A New Jersey appellate court judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking the implementation of local government-sponsored needle exchange programs (NEPs) in two Garden State cities, Atlantic City and Camden. Although Judge Stephen Skillman issued the injunction June 16, it was not made public until Monday. The action came at the request of seven legislators -- six Republicans and one Democrat -- who oppose NEPs and who argued that former Gov. James McGreevey exceeded his constitutional powers when he signed an executive order permitting NEPs in up to three New Jersey cities hard hit by the HIV virus.
Former Gov. McGreevey's executive order declaring a health emergency was the culmination of efforts by communities like Atlantic City to address the urgent public health problem. After ten years of state inaction on the matter, city officials in Atlantic City, spurred by the Drug Policy Alliance's New Jersey head, Roseanne Scotti, attempted an end run around state laws barring NEPs, only to be shot down in the courts. Then, a bill authorizing NEPs passed the state Assembly, only to be killed in the Senate. But even then, it took McGreevey's realization that he was about to be forced out of office by scandal that gave him the courage to act. "Now it's not about good politics, but about good policy," his spokesman told DRCNet at the time. While both Atlantic City and Camden were prepared to begin operating NEPs next month, now those plans are on hold pending further rulings in the case. "I'm obviously disappointed," said Atlantic City Health and Human Services Department director Ronald Cash. "We were moving to have the program in place early this summer, but now that will be delayed. We hope the courts will hear our argument and allow us to move forward," he told DRCNet. The impact on public health in Atlantic City will be adverse, Cash said. "People are going to keep on shooting up and keep on dying. Each day that we are without a needle exchange is another day we have the chance of someone sharing a needle contaminated with AIDS," Cash explained. "Blocking the needle exchange is going to have an adverse impact not only on injection drug users, but on the women and children associated with them as well." "How can anyone argue that there is no emergency in New Jersey regarding injection related HIV?" said DPA's Scotti. "More than 15,000 people have died and another 15,000 are currently infected due to the sharing of contaminated syringes. How many people have to die before our elected officials see that there is a crisis?" But for NEP opponents it wasn't about public health but public morality. The ruling was "a victory for common sense," said Assemblymen Joe Pennacchio (R-Morris), one of the legislators who went to court to block the programs. "These programs do not reduce the spread of disease, and they only encourage drug addicts to continue this self-destructive behavior. Dirty needles would continue to be exchanged and lives would continue to be destroyed under this program, but it would be with the endorsement of the state," he said after the ruling. NEPs wouldn't help drug users, argued Sen. Thomas Kean (R-Union), another of the legislators who went to court. People who believe NEPs help "naively think that a heroin user -- for whom good judgment was the first casualty of their addiction -- will willingly forgo shooting up with a friend's needle until they can go to an exchange program to get a clean one," he said. While Pennacchio offered nothing positive to counter his fantasy-based assessment of the efficacy of NEPs -- a position not shared by the World Health Organization or the US-based University of California at San Francisco's Center for AIDS Prevention, both of which say that NEPs clearly reduce infection rates -- Kean was at least politically astute enough to point in other directions. "The best answer for chronic intravenous drug users is creating more treatment opportunities and increased utilization of drug courts," he said. "The only thing we're trying to do is save some lives," said Atlantic City Council President Craig Callaway, who sponsored the Atlantic City syringe exchange ordinance. "Let the people who are trying to save lives, save them." Atlantic City health department head Cash was bit more hard-edged. "Until you've seen what AIDS does up close and personal, it doesn't ring with you," he said, alluding to the suburban Republican backgrounds of six of the seven legislators who sued to block the programs. "Those legislators must not have been touched by the virus. Needle exchange is working and saving lives everywhere else. New Jersey is woefully behind on this one, and it frustrates me to no end that those legislators from up there can tell us what's best for people in this community." A spokesman for the state attorney general's office, which argued the case for the state, told Gannett News Service the office was "reviewing the court's order and considering our appellate options." That's something Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Roberts would like to see, he told Gannett. "It's my expectation that the state will appeal, and I certainly would advocate that they should do that," Roberts said. "This is a matter of life and death. Every day that we delay joining the majority of other states in the nation in giving people access to clean syringes, we're costing people their lives." For Scotti and the Drug Policy Alliance, the fight goes on. "We are disappointed in the court's order, but we will continue to fight. The ball is now in the legislature's court. The Assembly has passed two syringe access bills and now it is the Senate's turn to do the right thing and get those bills passed. We know how to prevent these infections. We know what works. Most other states allow access to clean needles to prevent the spread of HIV. It is a disgrace that New Jersey continues to let this deadly virus spread when we could be saving lives right now."
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