House budget bill threatens D.C. needle exchange
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
July 16, 2009
Members of the U.S. House have added a new rider to the District's 2010 federal appropriation that threatens to wipe out most needle-exchange programs in D.C., even as Democrats claimed to have started a new era of no meddling in city affairs.
It was only last year that Democrats lifted the long-standing ban on public funding for needle exchange programs in the nation's capital.
But an amendment recently offered by Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, and accepted by the Democrat-led Appropriations Committee, bars the District from distributing clean needles or syringes to drug addicts within 1,000 feet "of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event sponsored by any such entity."
Needle exchanges are common in large cities with high rates of HIV/AIDS. In the District, city officials say, the disease rate has reached epidemic levels.
City law already prohibits needle exchanges within 1,000 feet of schools. The new language could wipe out all recent attempts to expand the program, proponents of the effort say, especially given that many exchanges are mobile and often occur near parks.
"A 1,000-foot rider from any of those puts a great barrier in a city as geographically small as D.C.," said Dr. Phil Terry, executive director of PreventionWorks!, a nonprofit needle-exchange provider. "There's virtually no area in D.C. that would meet those restrictions, except maybe Capitol Hill. It makes it very difficult to implement programs that we know are effective in reducing hepatitis and HIV."
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton urged her colleagues to reject any "anti-home rule amendments" before the Appropriations Committee vote on the financial services and general government budget bill, which contains D.C.'s federal contribution. Kingston's amendment was accepted on a voice vote.
The hope is to remove the language through the Senate or in conference, said Walter Smith, executive director of exchange backer D.C. Appleseed. Key players, he said, are not yet "fully aware that this is happening and keenly aware of its significance."
The city's federal appropriation is likely to emerge from the House without perennial riders barring the city from subsidizing abortions or holding a medical marijuana referendum. The Rules Committee on Tuesday nixed nine proposed D.C.-related amendments offered by Republican members involving guns, gay marriage, abortion and marijuana.
