Published: June 30, 2005

The New Jersey State Senate is placing politics above public safety - and tacitly promoting the spread of H.I.V. and AIDS - by failing to pass a desperately needed needle exchange bill that was approved by the State Assembly last year. Without access to clean needles, or to treatment programs, which are now overcrowded, addicts risk almost certain infection by continuing to share needles with other addicts. They then spread AIDS through sexual contact to their wives, lovers and unborn children, endangering an ever-widening circle of lives.

Opponents of needle exchange programs typically argue that furnishing addicts with clean needles "legitimizes" drug use. But this view is based in ideology, not science. It has been directly contradicted by studies carried out across the United States and around the world that show that needle exchanges slow the spread of disease without creating new intravenous-drug addicts. The needle exchange solution is sorely needed in New Jersey, which has one of the highest infection rates in the country, and especially in Atlantic City, an epicenter of the state's AIDS epidemic.

Before he left office last year, Gov. James McGreevey issued an executive order allowing needle exchange programs, hoping that the State Legislature would act later. The Senate, however, has dragged its feet. In addition, a group of senators, led by Tom Kean Jr., a Republican, have challenged the executive order in court. Mr. Kean may benefit politically from this move. But New Jerseyans as a whole will pay a price in spreading infections, higher costs to care for AIDS patients and more unnecessarily lost lives.