Subject: New York City's Health Unit Urges Easier Syringe Rule
Date: Published: 9/3/85 77 lines
Source:  Wall Street Journal.  Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc. 

   New York City's
   Health Unit Urges
   Easier Syringe Rule
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   Step Is Meant to Slow Spread
   Of AIDS Among Addicts
   Who Share Dirty Needles
    ---
   By Michael Waldholz
   Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

   NEW YORK -- The city's health department, alarmed by the
fast spread of AIDS among drug abusers who share contaminated
hypodermic needles, has been seeking to make it easier for
addicts to buy sterile needles and syringes from pharmacies.
   The health department has quietly pressed its case with
the city government, concerned that publicity will scuttle
the plan.
   New York is one of 11 states that regulates the sale of
needles and syringes by requiring a physician's prescription.
Law enforcement officials believe removing the prescription
requirement will significantly increase the supply of needles
on the street and encourage intravenous drug abuse of heroin
and other narcotics, especially among first-time drug users.
   But in a memorandum to Mayor Ed Koch last month, health
commissioner David J. Sencer said that because the
restrictions are "forcing addicts to use others' needles and
syringes, we are condemning large numbers of addicts to death
from AIDS," or acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
   Dr. Sencer suggested that the city press the state to
repeal its law requiring a prescription to buy a needle and
create sites where non-sterile needles could be exchanged for
clean ones.
   "The recommendations are very controversial," said Mark
Kleiman, a drug policy analyst at University of Rochester.
"Before making needles more available, the city must figure
out if doing so will really reduce needle sharing, or reduce
it enough to significantly affect the virus's spread."
   According to health officials, needle sharing is second
only to sexual activities as the most common manner for the
transmission of AIDS. 
   In New York City, intravenous drug abusers accounted for
30% of the 4,387 cases of the disease reported since 1981.
Health officials said the incidence of the disease is rising
faster among drug addicts than any other risk group.
   Mayor Koch has sought the advice of the city's district
attorneys before he acts.  A spokesman for the mayor said none
of the prosecutors has given an opinion yet.  Efforts to reach
several city prosecutors for comment Friday were
unsuccessful.
   Public health officials said they believe public education
programs created to slow the disease's rampant spread among
homosexuals appear to be taking hold, but efforts to stem the
epidemic among intravenous drug users haven't been effective.
   Needle use also has been indirectly linked to the spread
of AIDS among children born to mothers who are addicts.  These
children are thought to contract the disease before or during
birth.
   City officials believe about 87% of intravenous drug users
have the virus, though not all will develop the disease.
Loosening the regulations, some officials believe, will
reduce the virus's spread to new drug addicts.
   Last week, news that the Los Angeles health department was
distributing a pamphlet urging addicts to use clean needles
set off an uproar as some charged the city with encouraging
drug abuse.  Los Angeles is rewriting the pamphlet to calm
critics.

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hope that it will be of some help to those who are suffering 
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