The State - News from July 27, 1986

San Francisco officials discarded a proposal to pass out clean needles to drug addicts to help guard against the spread of AIDS. After a city health official revealed that such a proposal was being studied, Mayor Dianne Feinstein held a news conference and called it “a terrible and truly offensive idea which would put the health department in a position of aiding and abetting drug addiction.” Health director David Werdegar said there is “no scientific evidence” that acquired immune deficiency syndrome would be reduced by the distribution of clean needles, “but there is evidence that distribution of needles can increase drug use.”