How-To Pamphlet on Drug Use Attacked by Hahn, Antonovich

A pamphlet, printed with county and federal funds, that tells intravenous drug users to keep their needles clean in order to reduce the danger of contracting AIDS drew an angry reaction Wednesday from two county supervisors, who asked that its distribution be halted and called for an investigation into its publication.

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn was “shocked” by the pamphlet, saying it “implies the official approval of governments of the county and city of Los Angeles toward drug use.”

Hahn distributed a motion he intended to present today that would stop distribution of the brochure and authorize an investigation into who is responsible.

Supervisor Mike Antonovich called the publication an example of “radical liberals using taxpayers’ dollars to subsidize deviant behavior and another example of bureaucrats going crazy.”

The brochure, titled, “Shooting Up and Your Health,” was prepared by the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco. It was published and distributed by Los Angeles County’s Department of Health Services drug abuse program office and the AIDS Project L.A., an organization funded in part with federal money funneled through Los Angeles city government.

A spokesman for Hahn’s office said about $1,600 in county funds was used. The amount of city-approved federal funds used, if any, was not immediately known.

The pamphlet advises drug users who use needles: “Clean your works. Wash them with alcohol after each use. . . .” It also advises users: “Clean your skin with alcohol before injecting” and to “keep healthy; if you are in a weakened state, you are more likely to get a disease.” Irv Cohen, acting director of the Department of Health Services, said he issued an order Wednesday afternoon banning further distribution.

“It was inappropriate for the department to tell people the proper way to shoot drugs,” Cohen said.

He said the pamphlet was one result of a county-city task force on AIDS--acquired immune deficiency syndrome--that included representatives of the department’s drug abuse program office. When department director Robert Gates saw the brochure in June, he “informed the program people that it was in bad taste and assumed that they had stopped issuing the brochures,” Cohen said.

John Lapham, a spokesman for AIDS Project L.A., said the pamphlet’s purpose is to advise drug users “how the risky practice of intravenous drug use relates to AIDS.” He said the brochure is distributed primarily “through drug-counseling centers, where counselors advise against drug use.”