California
Governor
Offers
to
Sign
Revised
Needle
Exchange
Bill
9/3/99
After threatening to veto AB 518, a needle exchange bill passed by both houses of the California legislature, Gov. Gray Davis has offered to sign a compromise bill that allows communities to authorize needle exchange programs, but only by issuing emergency orders that must be renewed every two weeks. Davis' shift follows calls from elected officials of both parties, including Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a Republican, and 21 members of California's Congressional delegation, in an open letter organized by U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi. AB 518 was sponsored by Assemblymember Kerry Mazzoni, who represents Marin County, one of the jurisdictions that issues emergency orders to protect the local needle exchange. The original bill required local authorization of needle exchange programs, but did not require the biweekly emergency orders. In a statement issued on Wednesday, 9/1, Pat Christen, Executive Director of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said, "It is deeply discouraging that a compromise was necessary given the lives at stake, the overwhelming scientific evidence and the polling data in support of needle exchange. Nevertheless, the compromise is clearly a step in the right direction, consistent with our agency's harm reduction approach to HIV prevention." SFAF operates the HIV Prevention Point needle exchange, the largest such program in the country, which provides over 2.1 million syringes annually, to over 5,000 people. Many communities, however, have shied away from needle exchange programs, due to the legal ambiguity of local official support vs. state law that makes provision of syringes without a prescription a misdemeanor. SFAF Public Policy Director Regina Aragón said, "Our hope is that, once [AB 518 is] enacted, additional communities across the state will take advantage of these legal protections." Because the exact language of the compromise has not been finalized, it is not yet possible to assess the likely impact on communities that wish to offer needle exchange. (See http://www.drcnet.org/wol/105.html#nepsupport for results of the recent Field Institute survey and http://www.drcnet.org/wol/104.html#caldelegation for additional background information on AB 518. Visit Syringe Exchange Resources Online at http://www.projectsero.org for much more about the needle exchange issue.)
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