Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors Approves Funding for Needle-Exchange
Programs
The Los
Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, August 4,
2005 voted 3-2 to allocate $500,000 for five needle-exchange
programs to help slow the spread of HIV,
hepatitis and other
bloodborne diseases among injection drug users, the Los Angeles
Times reports (Los Angeles Times, 8/3). The approval
will make the service available in local communities outside
the city of Los Angeles for the first time, the Copley News/Torrance
Daily Breeze reports. Los Angeles County Public Health Director
Jonathan Fielding said his agency will ask the not-for-profit
groups that currently provide needle-exchange services for
about 11,600 people in the city of Los Angeles to broaden
their reach to the rest of the county.
Funding
for the programs, which is coming from tobacco settlement
money, likely will pay for four mobile sites and one fixed
site where drug users can exchange used needles for clean
ones, Fielding said, adding that his agency aims to reach
another 10,000 people throughout the county. About 45% of
the county’s 72,000 injection drug users share needles,
Fielding
said. "We're not providing drugs or condoning drug use in
any way," he said, adding, "What we want to do is try to prevent
those who use drugs from transmitting potentially fatal diseases."
Supervisor
Michael Antonovich, who cast one of the two opposing votes,
was "openly scornful" about the programs' approval, according
to the Copley News/Daily Breeze. One of his complaints is
that needle-exchange program clients will not have to provide
any identification showing they are at least 18 years old.
"What we need to have are aggressive drug rehabilitation programs,
not a politically correct system that fosters" injection drug
use, he said.
Cases of AIDS