Slowing HIV Is Worthy

A moral riddle: Would you take steps to stem a deadly epidemic if by doing so you seem to sanction another deadly epidemic--the use of illegal drugs?

The Ventura County Board of Supervisors grappled with this question last week and arrived at the correct answer. In a 4-1 vote, the board approved a needle-exchange program that will allow drug addicts to turn in used hypodermic needles for new ones.

The aim is to slow the spread of HIV and hepatitis among intravenous drug users, whose actions put them at particular risk for infection.

Needle-exchange programs have been around elsewhere for years. They are cheap, sensible and often controversial.

The concept is simple: By sharing needles, drug users also share infections. By giving an addict a clean needle, the government spends a dime to cut his chance of contracting a disease, which it otherwise would spend as much as $120,000 to treat. In addition, the exchange puts addicts in regular contact with social workers who can sell them on the possibility of treatment for their addiction.

According to several major studies, needle-exchange programs have reduced HIV infection in drug users by 30%. They have been supported by the American Medical Assn., the U.S. Conference of Mayors and numerous cities in which they operate, including Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and San Francisco.

Even so, critics contend that such programs are tantamount to official sanction of heroin and other drugs.

“I think this helps to continue the threat to the community and continue the use of drugs,” said Frank Schillo, the lone Ventura County supervisor who voted against the program. “It just gives them a way to use drugs.”

We disagree. In our view, the spread of AIDS, hepatitis B and hepatitis C poses a greater threat to the community than the distribution of untainted syringes.

Half the intravenous drug users in Ventura County have hepatitis B or C. At least one in five local AIDS cases among men and 45% of those among women stem from dirty needles, according to Dr. Robert Levin, the county public health official who is the moving force behind the needle exchange.

The hardhearted view would be that addicts are indulging in illegal and immoral behavior, and deserve to suffer the consequences. Even if that’s so, we can’t picture a non-addicted wife deserving her husband’s deadly infection, or their children deserving a household as shattered by disease as it is by drugs. Drug abuse is a blight, but letting users spread infection is no way to fight it.

Despite some encouraging developments in medication, AIDS still is epidemic, incurable, and fatal; to allow a situation where it can thrive unchecked ultimately endangers everyone.