The Boston Globe

Septemper 20, 1989

Bush’s war on drugs ignores
AIDS, says panel

By Richard A. Knox
Globe Staff

The National AIDS Commission yesterday
criticized the Bush administration's war-on-
drugs plan for ignoring the AIDS epidemic.

The newly formed commission, set up to ad-
vise Congress and the president on AIDS policy,
unanimously agreed that the administration's
battle plan against drugs ignored the recom-
mendations of a R administration com-
mission for fighting the twin epidemics of drug
addiction and AIDS.

Among its 600 recommendations, the pre-
vious AIDS commission called last year for drug
treatment “on demand” and said the govern-
ment needs to fund training of 59,000 new drug
treatment specialists and 2,500 new drug treat-
ment facilities.

The interface between drug addiction and the
AIDS epidemic “has been omitted from their

tic goal, according to the commission spokes-
man, Thomas Brandt.

planning.” the commission chairman. Dr. June
Osborn, said. She was referring to the war pian
advanced by William Bennett. the administra-
tion's drug policy director, and unveiled by Bush
earlier this month.

A member of the commission. Don DesJar-
lais, a New York state drug treatment official.
said the Bennett plan “went about a third of the
way” toward what last year’s presidential AIDS
commission recommended.

The new 15-member commission, appointed
jointly by Congress and the president. discussed
inviting Bennett to testify at its next meeung in
early November but made no decision.

The panel also did not cail for drug treatment
on demand, as several of its members on Mon-
day predicted it would. One commissioner.
Diane Ahrens. a county official from Minnesota.
expressed skepticism that providing drug treat-
ment to every addict who requesied it is a realis-

Dr. Robert Newman. president of Beth Israe}
Medical Center in New York City, on Monday
urged the commission to come out strongly for
eliminating waiting lists for drug treatment.

“It's Just mind-boggling that this country
continues to permit waiting lists.” Newman said.
“Drug treatment is not viewed as a medical
treatment like diabetes or heart disease. No one
says those people should wait on the street.”

In other action yesterday, the commission
urged Congress to “resist attempts to embark on
AIDS policy initiatives offered as amendments to
fiscal 1990 appropriations bills.”

The commission was referring to a possible
replay of attempts in earlier years by conserva-
tive legislators to require mandatory AIDS anti-
body testing and tracing of sexual contacts of in-
tected people.