Needle Exchange

At 9:30 this morning, a cream-colored Winnebago will pull onto North Caroline Street, open its door and wait for drug addicts.After years of debate, Baltimore's needle-exchange program is about to begin.Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is spreading grimly through the city's population of intravenous drug users.The new program, in which addicts receive free, clean needles for each dirty one they turn in, is meant to help slow the rate of infection from shared, dirty syringes."There's no [AIDS]

Despite personal misgivings, Gov. William Donald Schaefer yesterday signed into law legislation establishing a pilot needle exchange program in Baltimore designed to stem the devastating spread of AIDS among drug addicts.The three-year experiment should be in operation by July 1. It will involve 750 to 1,000 of the city's estimated 48,000 addicts and most likely will be run from a mobile van that will regularly visit three yet-to-be-selected sites in the city, said Dr. Peter Beilenson, the city's health commissioner.

Bashing Baltimore City has often been an easy way for suburban legislators to make waves, particularly in election years. However, this year they resisted that easy temptation. In a remarkable demonstration of open-mindedness and experimentation, they approved Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's request that Baltimore be allowed to see whether a needle exchange program will reduce the spread of AIDS.Baltimore City's population of 730,000 people includes an estimated 30,000 heroin addicts and 10,000 cocaine addicts.

Magnet SchoolsThe magnet school program was presented to Baltimore County residents as an effort to increase educational opportunities for students throughout the county. Magnet school fairs were used to attract students into the program.What was not emphasized was that the federally mandated objective was to alter the racial mix within schools.I assume the gender emphasis noted in The Sun's March 20 story was initially, or later became part of, the program's objective.The board might have been able to maintain the appearance of a program to improve opportunities for all students if the numbers were right.

Prodded by the appeals of three black Baltimore lawmakers, the House of Delegates yesterday agreed to let the city set up a small needle-exchange program for drug users, making passage the initiative by the full General Assembly virtually certain.The anti-AIDS program -- Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke's top priority during this year's legislative session -- passed the House by a vote of 84-51, with all but two of the city's 27-member delegation endorsing it."I'm very pleased," Mr. Schmoke said. "The size of the vote indicates a strong endorsement of the program.

The Maryland Senate is expected to reconsider a bill today that would allow Baltimore to begin a pilot needle-exchange program. The bill was defeated late Monday night after receiving only 23 votes, one short of the constitutional majority required to pass the Senate.Sen. Paula C. Hollinger, however, has asked the Senate to reconsider the bill.One of the senators absent for Monday's vote, Beatrice Tignor, a Prince George's County Democrat, is expected to vote for it the second time around.

Gov. William Donald Schaefer outlined his legislative agenda for this year -- his final year as governor -- during yesterday's State of the State address. Here are highlights of what he is proposing:GUN CONTROLLimit purchases of many firearms to one per month per person, similar to Virginia law. A ban on the sale or transfer of 18 types of military-style assault pistols and of ammunition magazines holding more than 20 rounds. Increase penalties for the illegal sale or transfer of regulated firearms.

In the pork-barrel world of politics, one has to demand to receive. For that reason, it strikes us as odd that the Schmoke administration is going to the 1994 session of the General Assembly without the kind of wish list that politicians expect and can relate to. That may not leave much room for wheeling and dealing.This is particularly odd since it is William Donald Schaefer's final year as governor. Next year will bring a new non-city governor.The Schmoke administration argues that it decided to avoid big-ticket items this year because it does not think the state has enough money to grant them.

Urban Gardening Expenditures QuestionedEric Siegel's Dec. 13 article, "Baltimore urban gardening program endangered by cut in federal funds," offers an example of a mindset that has brought this country to the brink of financial ruin (and I'm optimistic here -- evidence says we're already well over the brink and heading for an inevitable crash).According to the article, the urban gardening program has provided federal funds to Baltimore communities to help them set up flower and vegetable gardens through the University of Maryland's Cooperative Extension Service.

WASHINGTON -- The federal government's first comprehensive study of whether giving clean needles to addicts can help prevent the spread of AIDS has concluded that it does and that the government should finance a significant expansion of such programs.The panel reviewed programs in the United States, Canada and Europe in which drug abusers can turn in a used needle and get a fresh, sterile one. The chief object of these programs is to end the drug abuser's need to share syringes that may have become contaminated with blood carrying the human immunodeficiency virus.