Federal AIDS Commission Attacks Bush Drug Policy : Health: Panel charges that the Administration ignores the link between narcotics abuse and the disease. Martinez blames Congress for lack of funds.

Bush Administration drug policy has virtually ignored the connection between drug abuse and AIDS despite their “insidious and indisputable link,” the National Commission on AIDS said in a report released Tuesday.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy continues to “neglect the real public health and treatment measures (that) could and must be taken to halt the spread” of AIDS, the commission said in one of its regular interim reports to Congress and the White House.

It called for a federal policy that would support “treatment on demand” for drug addicts and programs--such as needle exchanges and bleach distribution--that would discourage practices that promote the spread of AIDS.

“The flash fire potential of (AIDS) transmission through injection drug use has been demonstrated repeatedly in this country and around the world, and it is an issue of the greatest urgency,” said Dr. June Osborn, chairman of the commission and dean of the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

Bob Martinez, director of the drug policy office, said the AIDS commission report “distorts the Administration’s position on expanding and improving drug treatment,” and he blamed Congress for declining to authorize millions of dollars in drug treatment funds requested by President Bush.

In the United States, nearly a third of the estimated 180,000 adult and adolescent cases of AIDS stem from intravenous drug use, either through the sharing of hypodermic needles contaminated with the human immunodeficiency virus or by sexual contact with an HIV-infected drug user, the commission said. Nearly a fifth of AIDS cases among men are directly linked to intravenous drug use, it said.

Moreover, of those pediatric AIDS cases where transmission occurred from mother to fetus during pregnancy, about 70% are directly related to maternal exposure to HIV through drug use or through sex with an infected drug user, the commission added.

The National Commission on AIDS is an independent panel established by Congress to advise lawmakers and the White House on the development of a national strategy to combat the AIDS epidemic. It is composed of AIDS experts from the public health community and includes a woman with the disease. Non-voting members include the secretary of health and human services, the secretary of defense and the secretary of veterans affairs.

The commission recommended that legal barriers to the purchase and possession of injection equipment be removed, saying that such restrictions increase the sharing of needles but do not reduce illicit drug use.

“National drug policy must recognize the success of outreach programs which link needle exchange and bleach distribution programs with drug treatment,” the report said. “The commission has visited numerous programs throughout the country. . . . These programs have demonstrated the ability to get substance users to change injection practices.”

Martinez, however, said that the commission report, as well as recent studies on needle exchange programs, “fail to provide clear scientific evidence that such programs reduce risk-taking behavior.”

The panel also urged “treatment on demand” for addicts, which was a major recommendation three years ago of an AIDS commission formed by President Ronald Reagan. Citing White House figures showing that the Administration last year requested $1.5 billion to expand prisons at the state and local level but asked for only $100 million for expanding treatment programs, the commission criticized the Administration for emphasizing “creation of more prison beds rather than treatment slots.”

“It is fundamentally unjust as well as unwise to tell those who seek treatment for drug addiction that there is no room; but then tell them that the taxpayers are willing to spend thousands of dollars a year to keep them in jail,” the report added.

The commission also recommended that the government and the private sector launch a “serious and sustained attack” on the social problems that spawn drug use, specifically poverty and social neglect, including homelessness and lack of medical care.

Martinez said that since the drug policy office was created in 1988, the budget for drug treatment “has more than doubled,” from $692 million to $1.5 billion.

“The major obstacle to further expansion of drug treatment has been Congress’ refusal to fully allocate the treatment funds requested by President Bush,” Martinez said.