As a society, we claim to be concerned about the health and welfare of our citizens who use illegal drugs.  Yet we provide methadone maintenance, the most effective treatment for heroin addiction, to less than one heroin user in five, at the same time that we provide almost unlimited funds to imprison users.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tells us that the most effective way to prevent the spread of AIDS among injecting drug users is to make sure that each injection is made with a new, sterile needle; yet, in many cities and states, we use the government's police power to prevent injecting drug users from getting access to sterile needles.

We believe in equality before the law, but in at least some cities and states, we permit the police to practice racial profiling, causing HIV to spread much more rapidly among African Americans and Latinos than among whites who inject drugs - when, in reality, we do not want anyone to get HIV.

We spend hundreds of millions of dollars for HIV prevention, yet not one federal prevention dollar can be spent for needle exchange programs, the most effective prevention technique for injection drug users, the group that now accounts for half of all new HIV infections.

We are concerned about rising medical costs, yet ignore the fact that it costs much less to prevent the spread of HIV through needle exchange programs than it does to treat HIV.

We spend hundreds of millions of dollars to treat people with HIV.  No one would defend having racial preferences in how we spend those dollars.  Yet our best information is that, because of inadequate treatment, African Americans and Latinos who inject drugs are dying from AIDS in proportionately higher numbers than whites who inject drugs.

Every year, 10,000 African Americans who inject drugs are infected with HIV.  Every year, 4,500 Latinos who inject drugs are infected with HIV.  Every year, 5,500 people of other races who inject drugs are infected with HIV.  We must meet this challenge:

• We must make drug treatment available to all who need it, regardless of race/ethnicity. 

• We must make AIDS treatment available to all who need it, regardless of race/ethnicity.

• We must make federal HIV prevention dollars available for needle exchange programs and other programs that increase access to sterile syringes.

• We must follow the lead of states like Connecticut and Hawaii.  We must reform our state laws and regulations to:

• Permit and fund needle exchange programs

• Permit pharmacies to sell syringes without prescriptions

• Permit possession of sterile needles and related injection equipment

• Recognize that HIV prevention is a legitimate medical purpose and encourage physicians to write syringe prescriptions for people who inject drugs.

As a humane society, we can do no less.