In
April 1998 Rep. Gerald Solomon (R-NY) introduced a bill to the
House of Representatives that would have prohibited the expenditure
of federal funds to support any form of needle exchange program.
Rep. Waxman spoke against the bill, and his statement follows.
PROHIBITING
THE EXPENDITURE OF FEDERAL FUNDS FOR DISTRIBUTION OF NEEDLES OR
SYRINGES FOR HYPODERMIC INJECTION OF ILLEGAL DRUGS
April
29, 1998
The
Congressional Record
By
Henry A. Waxman
Mr. WAXMAN.
Mr. Speaker, as I listen to the debate, I wondered why do we have
this bill up at this moment? There is no urgency, except for the
fact that we read last week that the number of HIV infections
is going up, even as more people with AIDS are living longer because
of drug therapy. Today, we are not spending Federal dollars for
needle exchange programs, although some people think it might
be a good public health strategy to reduce the spread of AIDS.
Ordinarily,
when we get people saying a policy is worthwhile and others saying
it is not, we would hold hearings and we try to find out the truth.
But this bill is being brought up without the committee that has
jurisdiction holding any hearings, without hearing from the Surgeon
General, the American Medical Association, and the public health
community to learn the truth. This bill is being brought up now,
it seems to me, for political reasons.
What would
be the political reasons involved? Well, it is always great politics
for someone to say they are against drug addiction. We can all
say that. We are all against drug addiction. But there is another
political reason. It seems to me that if I were part of the Republican
leadership and my party had received millions of dollars from
the tobacco companies, I would want to change the subject. I would
want to talk about drugs. It is an important issue, but it is
not being handled in a responsible way that an important issue
should be handled.
So I think
that the American people ought to understand what is going on
here today. If I were going to try to take people's minds off
the fact that over 450,000 people die each year in this country
from smoking-related diseases, while only a fraction of that number
of people die from illicit drug use. Tobacco is such an enormous
problem, that I would try to minimize that problem by trying to
change the subject.
If we are
going to do a scientific evaluation of needle exchange, we ought
to ask the people who know about it to give us some guidance.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services has done that, and
she concluded that needle exchange programs lead IV drug users
into drug treatment programs to rid themselves of drug addiction.
This is a
very worthwhile result. But she also said that the National Institutes
of Health that have looked at needle exchange and determined that
it has reduced not only the incidence of illicit drug use, but
reduced the spread of HIV infection.
Congress wrote
a law that was responsible for this evaluation. We said we do
not want any Federal funds to be used for needle exchange programs
unless we can be clear that it is not only a good strategy to
stop the spread of HIV, but it is also going to discourage, or
at least not encourage, the use of illegal drugs. And if there
were a positive finding on both of those areas, Federal funds
could be then available. The Secretary made a finding that both
circumstances apply to these needle exchange programs; yet the
administration's position is no Federal funds still would be permitted.
So why do
we have this bill up today? This bill says no matter what we learn
from experiments, we will never allow federal funding of needle
exchange programs. Why should we take that kind of position? Why
should we determine forever what the policy will be, especially
in the face of so much evidence that is extremely effective in
stopping the spread of HIV and also in discouraging people from
using illegal drugs?
The regular
order of Congress should be to permit the committees that have
jurisdiction and Members that have knowledge, to hold hearings
and evaluate these issues. What we are being told today is to
pass a rule, to take it away from the committee, to have no hearings,
to not think about the issue beyond a few slogans and cliches,
and to immediately pass a bill so we can go home and claim we
have done something, when in fact no real-world result will come
from our efforts.
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