TESTIMONY OF DAVID G. EVANS, ESQ.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DRUG-FREE SCHOOLS COALITION
BEFORE THE HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
COMMITTEE OF THE NEW JERSEY ASSEMBLY
SEPTEMBER 20, 2004
TRENTON, NJ
IN OPPOSITION TO A-3256
SUMMARY OF THE TESTIMONY:
THE PUBLIC HEALTH BENEFITS AND SOCIAL EFFECTS OF NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS ARE AT BEST UNCERTAIN, AND AT WORST ARE DEVASTATING TO BOTH ADDICTS AND THEIR COMMUNITIES
A. NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS ARE NOT SCIENTIFICALLY
PROVEN TO REDUCE THE EPIDEMIC OF HIV OR HCV INFECTION
AMONG INJECTION DRUG USERS
B. NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS DO NOT REDUCE SUBSTANCE
ABUSE, BUT IN FACT FACILITATE AND ENCOURAGE SUBSTANCE
ABUSE
C. NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS ARE DESTRUCTIVE TO THE
COMMUNITIES IN WHICH THEY ARE USED
D. NEEDLE EXCHANGE SENDS A BAD MESSAGE TO SCHOOL CHILDREN.
PROVISION OF NEEDLES TO ADDICTS WILL ENCOURAGE DRUG USE.
THE MESSAGE IS INCONSISTENT WITH THE GOALS OF OUR
NATIONAL YOUTH-ORIENTED ANTI-DRUG CAMPAIGN.
A. NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS ARE NOT SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN TO REDUCE THE EPIDEMIC OF HIV OR HCV INFECTION AMONG INJECTION DRUG USERS
(i) The New Haven Study
NEP activists frequently cite the results of a New Haven, Conn., study, published in the American Journal of Medicine, which reported a one-third reduction of HIV among NEP participants. However, the New Haven researchers tested needles from anonymous users, rather than the addicts themselves, for HIV. They never measured “seroconversion rates,” which determine the portion of participants who become HIV positive during the study. Also, sixty percent of the New Haven study participants dropped out; those who remained were presumably more motivated to protect themselves, while the dropouts likely continued their high risk behavior.
Essentially, the New Haven study merely reported a one-third decrease in HIV-infected needles themselves, which, considering the fact that the NEP flooded the sampling pool with a huge number of new needles, is hardly surprising. Even Peter Lurie, a University of Michigan researcher and avid NEP advocate, admits that “the validity of testing syringes is limited.”
Furthermore, the New Haven study was based on a mathematical model of anonymous needles using six independent variables to predict the rate of infection. The unreliability of any of the variables invalidates the result. The New Haven study also assumed that any needle returned by a participant other than the one to whom it had been given had been shared, and that any needle returned by the original recipient had not been shared. Both assumptions are suspect. Also, the role of HIV transmission through sexual activity is downplayed. Prostitution often finances a drug habit. Non-needle using crack addicts have high incidence of HIV. Recent studies reveal that the greatest HIV threat among heterosexuals is from sexual conduct, not from dirty needles. Less than one-third of the New Haven subjects practiced safe sex. In the New Haven study, sampling error alone could account for the 30 percent decline.
(ii) The HHS / NAS Study
In 1992, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to study NEPs. HHS in turn commissioned the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), an independent, congressionally chartered, non-government research center, to conduct the study. According to the Congressional directive, if the NAS could show that NEPs worked and did not increase drug use, the Surgeon General could lift the ban on federal funding. The study was completed in 1995, and it concluded that well run NEPs could be effective in preventing the spread of HIV, and do not increase the use of illegal drugs. The NAS panel further recommended lifting the ban on federal funding for NEPs and legalization of injection paraphernalia. Now, seven years after the NAS study, Congress has yet to lift the NEP funding ban, clearly indicating that Congress maintains serious doubts as to the validity of the NAS/HHS conclusions regarding NEPs. Of note is that study chairman Dr. Lincoln E. Moses cites the dubious New Haven study as a basis for the NAS findings. The NAS panel admitted that its conclusions were not based on reviews of well-designed studies, and the authors admitted that no such studies exist. Incredibly, the panel reported that “the limitations of individual studies do not necessarily preclude us from being able to reach scientifically valid conclusions.”
Two of the physicians on the NAS panel, Herbert D. Kleber, M.D. and Lawrence S. Brown, M.D., say the news media exaggerated the NAS’s findings. “NEPs are not the panacea their supporters hope for…We personally believe that the spread of HIV is better combated by the expansion and improvement of drug abuse treatment rather than NEPs, and any government funds should be used instead for that purpose.” Dr. Kleber, executive vice president for medical research at Columbia University, added: “The existing data is flawed. NEPs may, in theory, be effective, but the data doesn’t prove that they are.”
This questionable NAS study represents the cornerstone research data used by the notoriously-politicized U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The pro-NEP advocacy of HHS, and its supporting data, has yet to convince Congress that NEPs are scientifically proven to reduce HIV infection while not increasing drug usage.
6 Id.
7 See Loconte, Joe, Policy Review, supra, note 2.
8 See New Jersey Family Policy Council, ANeedle Exchange Programs – Panacea or Peril, supra, note 1
9 See Loconte, Joe, Policy Review, supra, note 2.
(iii) The CDC Study
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) conducted a study whose chief architect, Dr. Peter Lurie, recommended NEPs. The CDC report calls for federal funds for NEPs and the repeal of drug paraphernalia laws
However, although the CDC study endorses NEPs, Dr. Lurie, the study’s author, acknowledges numerous problems: None of the studies were randomized, and self reported behavior was often the basis for outcomes. Poor follow up and rough measurement of risk behavior also present problems, and he notes that syringe studies have limited validity. The report concludes: “Studies of needle exchange programs on HIV infection rates do not, and in part due to the need for large sample sizes and the multiple impediments to randomization, probably cannot provide clear evidence that needle exchange programs decrease HIV infection rates.”
(iv) The Montreal Study
A 1995 Montreal study, published in the American Journal of epidemiology, showed that IDUs who used the NEP were more than twice as likely to become infected with HIV as IDUs who did not use the NEP. Thirty three percent of NEP users and 13 percent of nonuser became infected. There was an HIV seroconversion rate of 7.9 per 100 person years among NEP participants, and a rate of 3.1 per 100 person years among non-participants.
A high percentage of both groups shared intravenous equipment in the last six months: 78 percent of NEP users and 72 percent of non-NEP users. Risk factors identified as predictors of HIV infection included previous imprisonment, needle sharing and attending an exchange in the last six months. The study authors stated: “We caution against trying to prove directly the causal relation between NEP use and reduction in HIV incidence. Evaluating the effect of NEPs per se without accounting for other interventions and changes over time in the dynamics of the epidemic may prove to be a perilous exercise.” The study concluded: “Observational epidemiological studies…are yet to provide unequivocal evidence of benefit for NEPs.”
(v) The Vancouver Study
Vancouver has the largest NEP in North America, and was praised in the 1993 CDC report. It is financed by public funds, and by 1996 was distributing over 2 million needles per year. A 1997 evaluation of the needle exchange program in Vancouver showed that since the program began in 1988, AIDS prevalence in intravenous users rose from approximately 2% to 27%. This occurred despite the fact that 92% of the intravenous addicts in that jurisdiction participated in the needle exchange program.
The Vancouver study also found that 40% of the HIV-positive addicts who participated in the program had lent a used syringe in the previous six months, and that 60% of HIV-negative addicts had borrowed a used syringe in the previous six months. Despite the enormous number of clean needles provided free of charge, active needle sharing continued at an alarming rate. After only eight months, 18.6 percent of those initially HIV negative became HIV positive.
The Vancouver study corroborates a previous Chicago study which also demonstrated that its NEP did not reduce needle-sharing and other risky injecting behavior among participants. The Chicago study found that 39% of program participants shared syringes, compared to 38% of non-participants; 39% of program participants, and 38% of non-participants “handed off” dirty needles; and 68% of program participants displayed injecting risks vs. 66% of non-participants.
The Vancouver report noted that “it is particularly striking that 23 of the 24 seroconverters reported NEP as their most frequent source of sterile syringes, and only five reported having any difficulty accessing sterile syringes.”
The authors continue: “Our data are particularly disturbing in light of two facts: first, Vancouver has the highest volume NEP in North America; second, HIV prevalence among this city’s IDU population was relatively low until recent years. The fact that sharing of
injection equipment is normative, and HIV prevalence and incidence are high in a community where there is an established and remarkably active NEP is alarming.”
What should be obvious from all of the studies above is that there is no conclusive scientific evidence that NEP’s arrest HIV infection. Indeed, there is evidence that NEP’s breed HIV infection.
Some claim that the federal government supports NEPs. While the previous administration’s Department of Health and Human Services actively favored NEPs, those who were actually in charge of our national drug policy do not. General Barry McCaffrey, then director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), when addressing the issue of NEPS stated “we have a responsibility to protect our children from ever falling victim to the false allure of drugs. We do this, first and foremost, by making sure that we send them one clear, straightforward message about drugs: They are wrong and they can kill you.” McCaffrey’s strong views influenced President Clinton not to approve federal aid money for NEPs.
A further elaboration of the ONDCP’s policy was provided by James R. McDonough, Director of Strategic Planning for ONDCP, who wrote:
‘ The science is uncertain. Supporters of needle exchange frequently gloss over gaping holes in the data — holes which leave significant doubt regarding whether needle exchanges exacerbate drug use and whether they uniformly lead to decreases in HIV transmission. It would be imprudent to take a key policy step on the basis of yet uncertain and insufficient evidence.
The public health risks may outweigh potential benefits. Each day, over 8,000 young people will try an illegal drug for the first time. Heroin use rates are up among youth. While perhaps eight persons contract HIV directly or indirectly from dirty needles, 352 start using heroin each day, and more than 4,000 die each
year from heroin/morphine-related causes (the number one drug-related cause of death).Even assuming that NEWS can further accelerate the already declining rate
of HIV transmission, the risk that such programs might encourage a higher rate of heroin use clearly outweighs any potential benefit.
Treatment should be our priority. Treatment has a documented record of reducing drug use as well as HIV transmission. Our fundamental obligation is to provide treatment for those addicted to drugs. NEPS should not be funded at the expense of treatment.
Supporting NEPS will send the wrong message to our children. Government provision of needles to addicts may encourage drug use. The message sent by such government action would be inconsistent with the goals of our national youth-oriented anti-drug campaign.
NEPS do nothing to ameliorate the impact of drug use on disadvantaged neighborhoods. NEPS are normally located in impoverished neighborhoods. These programs attract addicts from surrounding areas and concentrate the negative consequences of drug use, including of criminal activity.
(vi) Among IV drug users, HIV is transmitted primarily through high-risk sexual contact
Another reason why NEPs may not retard the spread of HIV is that HIV is transmitted primarily through high-risk sexual contact, even among IV drug users. Contrary to prior assumptions, recent studies on the efficacy of NEPs have discovered that it is not needle exchange, but instead, high-risk sexual behavior which is the main factor in HIV infection for men and women who inject drugs, and for NEP participants. A recently released 10-year study has found that the biggest predictor of HIV infection for both male and female injecting drug users (IDUs) is high-risk sexual behavior and not sharing needles. High-risk homosexual activity was the most significant factor in HIV transmission for men and high-risk heterosexual activity the most
significant for women. The study noted that in the past the assumption was that IDUs who were HIV positive had been infected with the virus through needle sharing.
The researchers collected data every 6 months from 1,800 IDUs in Baltimore from 1988 to 1998. Study participants were at least 18 years of age when they entered the study, had a history of injection drug use within the previous 10 years, and did not have HIV infection or AIDS. More than 90 percent of them said they had injected drugs in the 6 months prior to enrolling in the study. In their interviews, the participants reported their recent drug use and sexual behavior and submitted blood samples to determine if they had become HIV POSITIVE since their last visit. The study showed that sexual behaviors, which were thought to be less important among IDUs, are the major risk for HIV seroconversion for both men and women.
If the above conclusions are correct, the very presumption of NEP efficacy becomes suspect. Indeed, the use of needle exchange programs to address a problem which is caused primarily by high-risk sexual behavior would seem to be highly misguided.
Another reason that Needle Exchange Programs do not effectively address the issue of “saving lives” is that HIV (regardless of how it is contracted) is not the primary cause of death for IVUs. A study conducted at the University of Pennsylvania followed 415 IV drug users in Philadelphia over four years. Twenty eight died during the study. Only five died from causes associated with HIV. Most died of overdose, homicide, suicide, heart or liver disease, or kidney failure.
Clean needles, even if they in fact prevent HIV, will do nothing to protect the addict from numerous more imminent fatal consequences of his addiction. It is both misleading and unethical to give addicts the idea that they can live safely as IV drug abusers. Only treatment
and recovery will save the addict. The myth of “safe IV drug use” is a lie which is perpetuated by NEPs, and it is a lie which will tend to kill the addict, although his corpse may be free of HIV, for whatever consolation that will provide to the NEP proponent.
B. NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS DO NOT REDUCE SUBSTANCE ABUSE, BUT IN FACT FACILITATE AND ENCOURAGE SUBSTANCE ABUSE.
The rise of NEPs, with their inherent facilitation of drug use (coupled with the provision of needles in large quantities), may also explain the rapid rise in binge cocaine injection which may be injected up to 40 times a day. Some NEPs encourage cocaine and crack injection by providing “safe crack kits” with instructions on how to inject crack intravenously. Crack cocaine can be, and generally had been, ingested through smoking. But the easy and plentiful availability of needles facilitates crack injection, creating a new segment of IV drug users, subject to health dangers they would otherwise have been spared exposure to. In some NEPS, needles are provided in huge batches of 1000, and although there is supposed to be a one-for-one exchange, the reality is that more needles are put out on the street than are taken in.
NEPs also facilitate drug use through lax law enforcement policies. Police are instructed not to harass addicts in areas surrounding NEPs. Addicts are exempted from arrest because they are given an anonymous identification code number. Since police in these areas must ignore drug use, and obvious and formidable disincentive to drug use disappears. As the presence of law enforcement declines in these areas, the supply of drugs rises, with increased purity and lower prices, attracting new and younger consumers.
Many drug prevention experts have warned that the proliferation of NEPS would result in a rise in heroin use, and indeed, this has come to pass. (However, the increase in drug use was ignored by the federally-funded studies which recommended federally funding NEPS). The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University reported August 14, 1997 that heroin use by American teens doubled from 1991 to 1996. In the past decade, experts
estimate that the number of US heroin addicts has risen from 550,000 to 700,000.
In 1994, a San Francisco study regarding a local NEP falsely concluded that there was no increase in community heroin use because there was no increase in young users frequenting the NEP. The actual rate of heroin use in the community was not measured, and the lead author, needle provider John Watters, was found dead of an IV heroin overdose in November 1995. According to the Public Statistics Institute, hospital admissions for heroin in San Francisco increased 66% from 1986 to 1995.
In Vancouver, site of the largest NEP in North America, heroin use has risen sharply. In 1988 when the NEP started, 18 deaths were attributed to drugs. In 1993, 200 deaths were attributed to drugs. A 1998 report notes that drug deaths were averaging 10 per week. Now Vancouver has the highest heroin death rate in North America, and is referred to as Canada’s “drug and crime capital.”
The 1997 National Institutes of Health Consensus Panel Report on HIV Prevention praised the NEP in Glasgow, Scotland, but the report failed to note Glasgow=s massive resultant heroin epidemic. Subsequently, as revealed in an article entitled “Rethinking Harm Reduction for Glasgow Addicts,” Glasgow took the lead in the United Kingdom in deaths from heroin overdose, and its incidence of AIDS continues to rise.
Boston’s NEP opened in July 1993, and the city became a magnet for heroin. Logan Airport has been branded the country’s “heroin port.” Boston soon led the nation in heroin purity (average 81%), and heroin samples of 99.9% are found on Boston streets. Subsequently, Boston developed the cheapest, purest heroin in the world and a serious heroin epidemic among the youth. The Boston NEP was supposed to be a “pilot study,” but there was no evaluation of seroconversion rates in the addicts nor of the rising level of heroin use in the Boston area.
Similarly, the Baltimore NEP is praised by those who run it, but the massive drug epidemic in the city is overlooked. The National Institute of Health reports that heroin treatment and ER admission rates in Baltimore have increased steadily from 1991 to 1995. At one open-air drug supermarket (open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.) customers were herded into lines sometimes 20 or 30 people deep. Guarded by persons armed with guns and baseball bats, customers are frisked for weapons, and then allowed to purchase $10 capsules of heroin.
One thing should be clear from the foregoing: since the implementation of NEPs, heroin use in our country has boomed. It is obvious: a public policy of giving needles to heroin addicts facilitates and encourages heroin use.
C. NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAMS ARE DESTRUCTIVE TO THE COMMUNITIES IN WHICH THEY ARE USED.
Most citizens oppose NEPs in their communities, and are concerned about the prospect of dirty needles being discarded in public places. These fears are not without merit. NEPs distribute millions of needles every year, and there is little or no accountability for needles once they have been distributed. A survey conducted in 1998 revealed that in that year 19,397,527 needles handed out, and at best 62% were exchanged, leaving 7-8 million needles unaccounted for. Carelessly discarded needles create a well-documented public hazard:
* On February 11, 2001, a six-year old from Glade View, Florida, stabbed five children with a discarded syringe. (Kellie Patrick/Scott Davis, “Playground Attack Raises Health Worries,” Sun Sentinal, 2/9/00, p 1B).
* On February 2, 2001, a nine year old from the Bronx stabbed four children with a discarded needle. (Diane Cardwell, “Boy Accused of Needle Attack,” The New York Times, 2/2/01, p. A17.)
* On February 13, 2001, a syringe left at a bus station stuck a four year old boy. (Mike Hast, “Big Fines for Syringe Litterers,” Frankson & Hastings Independent, February 13, 2001,www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n304/ a08.html.)
Besides the physical hazard created by discarded needles, there is a commonsense perception that NEPs bring an air of decay to the communities that host them. After several years of operation, 343 Massachusetts towns and cities (out of a total of 347) continue to decline the option of approving a local NEP, although of the 10 available slots, only 4 are taken.
31 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, HHS, Washington, DC 2001;50:384-388.
32 Maginnis, Robert L., 2001 Update On The Drug Needle Debate, Insight, Number 235, July 16, 2001, Family Research Council, 801 G. St. NW, Washington, DC 2001.
In March 1997, accompanied by a New York Times reporter, a member of the Coalition for a Better Community, a New York City group opposed to NEPs, visited the Lower East Side Needle Exchange. She was not asked for identification and was promptly given 40 syringes (without having to produce any to exchange). She was also given alcohol wipes and “cookers” for mixing the drugs, and she was given an exchange ID card that would exempt her from arrest for possession of drug paraphernalia. She was then shown how to inject herself.
Community opposition to the Lower East Side Needle Exchange arose soon after implementation of the local NEP due to an increase in dirty syringes on neighborhood streets, in school yards and in parks. There was observed to be a dramatic increase in the public display of injecting drugs. NEP users were seen selling their syringes to buy more drugs. Exchange workers themselves were photographed selling needles offsite. Neighbors perceived the Lower East Side NEP as little more than a wholesale distribution center for clean needles and a social club for addicts.
Pro-needle activist Donald Grove concurred: “Most needle exchange programs actually provide a valuable service to users beyond sterile injection equipment. They serve as sites of informal organizing and coming together. A user might be able to do the networking to find good drugs in the half an hour he spends at the street based needle exchange site networking that might otherwise have taken half a day. [Grove, D. The Harm Reduction Coalition, N.Y.C., Harm Reduction Communication, Spring 1996].
In 1998, a U.S. Government official was sent to Vancouver, site of the largest NEP in North America, to assess the high incidence of HIV among NEP participants, and the skyrocketing death rate due to drug overdose. He reported that the highest rates of property crime in Vancouver were within two blocks of the needle exchange. He also observed, pursuant to a tour with the Vancouver Police, that there was a 24 hour drug market and plain view injection activity in the area immediately adjacent to the needle exchange. Most poignantly, he was told, in a private interview with an elementary school teacher, that the children at area schools are not allowed outside at recess for fear of needles.
CONCLUSION
There is ample evidence to suggest that very fundamental premises used to justify and support NEPs are seriously flawed. First, NEP participants routinely continue to share needles and large percentages of the NEP participants are HIV positive, meaning that NEPs do nothing more than continue the spread of HIV (and HCV). Significantly, no one has been able to explain satisfactorily why enhanced needle availability in and of itself would discourage needle sharing: needle sharing is an intrinsic aspect of IV drug use, and a NEP-issued needle will transmit HIV as well as any other needle.
Second, NEP studies have discovered (inadvertently) that needle sharing is not even the primary cause of HIV infection for IVUs. It is primarily through high-risk sexual behavior that IVUs contract HIV; free needles do nothing to prevent sexually transmitted disease. Furthermore, HIV (regardless of how it is contracted) is not even the primary cause of death for IVUs. Most die of overdose, homicide, suicide, heart or liver disease, or kidney failure. Clean needles may protect an addict from HIV, but they do nothing to protect him from the more numerous, and more imminent fatal threats of his addiction. Several key NEP proponents have died of heroin overdose; no doubt their needles were very clean.
Third, the science is inconclusive. Although the proponents of NEPs uniformly aver that the scientific debate regarding the efficacy of NEPs is over, in truth, even the reports favoring NEPs are burdened with imprecise methodology, and many of the authors of those reports caution that their results should not be deemed conclusive. Today, there is still no conclusive scientific evidence: (1) that NEPs reduce the spread of HIV and HCV, or (2) that NEPs do not encourage IV drug use. Indeed, the correlation between the rise of NEPs and the explosion of IV drug use, if it is a coincidence, is a remarkable one. Dispassionate observers will look at the current epidemic of heroin and IV cocaine use as a tragedy which might have been averted, or mitigated, but for the misguided mercies of the NEP concept.
Fourth, while the benefits of NEPs may be in doubt, the costs to the surrounding communities are very real. The overwhelming majority of communities dread the prospect of a local NEP, for self-evident and well-documented reasons.
34 D.B. Des Roches, Information, Memorandum for the Director, Through: the Deputy Director, Subject: Vancouver Needle Exchange Trip Report, Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy, Washington, D.C. 20503, April 6, 1998.