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U.S. Faulted on Approach
To Drugs and AIDS Link

Commission Charges ‘Myopic’ Response"

 

- By Liz Hunt
Washngton Post Sieff Writer

The National Commrssion on
AIDS yesterday sharpiy criticized
the federal government for what it
said was a failure to address the
“twin epidemics” of drug abuse and
HIV infection, and for ignonng the
close link between the two that 1s
now producing one-third of all new
AIDS cases.

The commission said the govern-
ment’s “myopic” response to the
drug abuse problem was “imprison-
ment and increased jail sentences,
often ignonng drug/HIV relation-
ships.”

The commission said opportuni-
ties to limit the spread of HIV were
often lost because drug treatment
programs had too few places for
patients.

An estimated 107,000 people are
on waiting lists but while the gov-
ernment has increased the number
of prison beds, it has not increased
treatment slots, which the commuis-
sion sad puts thousands of people
at risk of acqunng the humar um-
munodeficiency virus (HIV) that
causes AIDS.

June E. Osborn, chairman of the
commission, said yesterday that
federal plans were “woefully insuf-
ficient” for dealing with the links
between AIDS and intravenous
drug abuse. “The flash fire potentzal
of HIV transmission through injec-
tion drug use has been demon-
strated repeatedly around the worid
and 1s an tssue of greatest urgency,”
Osborn said.

The report, “The Twin Epidem-

ice af Quheran. - Mea snd ATY * calls
for ifting restricuons on sae and
possession of needles and syringes,
and for drug treatment-programs to
be expanded in line with stated fed-
eral policy to provide treatment on
demand.

 

7 mele .
“The fsilure of the federa! gov-

ernment to recognize and contront
the twin epidemics of substance use
and HIV infection has become giar-
ingly apparent to the commussion.

[A] strategy of interdiction and in-
creased prison sentences has done
nothing to change the stark statis-
tics,” the report said.

It said that while the link be-
tween the spread of HIV and IV-
drug use 1s “insidious and indisput-
able,” the Office of the National
Drug Control Policy and other fed-
eral agencies continue to ignore it
when developing policy.

A third of AIDS cases are the re-
sult of intravenous (IV) drug use. In
New York City, for example, 50
percent of [V drug abusers are now

More than 70 percent of AIDS
cases in women are linked directly
or indirectly to [V drug use, the re-
port said. Among: children with
AIDS, 70 percent of cases are di-
rectly related to maternal exposure
to HIV through drug use or sex
with an [IV drug user.

In men, about a fifth of AIDS

cases are linked to IV drug use and
an additional 7 percent are associ-
ated with homosexual/bisexual con-
tact and IV drug use, according to
the commussion report.

Don C. Desjariais, director of re-
search for the Chem:cal Dependen-
cy Institute of Beth Israel Medical
Center in New York and a member
of the commission, said existing
laws that ban sale or possession of
injecting equipment are obsolete
and dangerous to public heaith be-
cause they encourage sharmg of
needles but do nothung to limit illicit
drug use.

In addition to lifting restrictions
on needles and syringes and ex-
panding drug treatment programs,
the commission. which reports to
Congress and the White House, rec-
ommended government support for
programs to teach children how IV
drug use spreads HIV.

It also called for further funding
for epidemiological studies. Social

'
nroblems. such as homelessness

ana poverty that are at (ne root ar
drug abuse, must be subjected to a
“sustamed attack” by the govern-
ment and private sector, it said.

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