David L. Kirp

About the author: David L. Kirp, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, is coeditor of AIDS in the Industrialized Democracies: Passions, Politics and Policies and author of Learning by Heart: AIDS and Schoolchildren in America's Communities.

Needle-exchange programs have been tried and tested as a possible strategy for controlling the spread of HIV infection among the intravenous drug-using population. In the past, many government officials resisted adopting such programs, fearing they would encourage drug abuse. However, research has proven such fears to be unfounded and has shown that needle-exchange programs are an effective means of controlling HIV infection among addicts. As a result, more and more communities are utilizing the programs, and lives are being saved.

At the stroke of noon on a frigid late-winter...