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People who inject drugs are at risk of contracting HIV, hepatitis and other blood-borne diseases if they share dirty hypodermic needles and syringes. These disease-related risks pose massive public health problems.

Nearly half of all adults living with AIDS in Philadelphia contracted HIV through injection drug use. Clean needle-exchange programs allow individuals who inject drugs to bring in their used syringes and needles and receive new, clean ones; public health researchers have proven that these programs decrease the rate of HIV transmission.

However, in 1988, the United States Congress banned federal funds from being used to support needle exchange programs.

The ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs should be lifted because needle exchange reduces the transmission of HIV and provides tools to reduce the harm of drug use while allowing drug users to retain autonomy over their lives.

Needle exchange programs effectively address the problem of the high rate of HIV infection among injection drug users, and are a crucial site for active drug users to receive other health-related materials and information. Needle exchange programs utilize principles of harm reduction to supply people who use injection drugs with increased opportunities for control over their lives and their choices, while respecting their authority over themselves and their bodies.

These programs also benefit communities by providing a safe disposal method for used needles and syringes, which may otherwise litter city streets and community space. We would all benefit from the increase in funding and visibility that needle exchange programs would receive if the federal funding ban were reversed.
Needle exchange programs were devised to reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases, and there is tremendous evidence that they work.

The first needle exchanges were developed in 1984 by the Junky Union, a group of IV drug users in the Netherlands. Their aim was to stop an outbreak of hepatitis B: the initiative was so effective that in 1985, the Amsterdam city government took it over. There is a wide consensus among public health professionals that needle exchanges are an effective tool for HIV prevention.

In 2000, then-U.S. Surgeon General, David Satcher, released a report stating that "the senior scientists of the Department [of the Health and Human Services] and I have unanimously agreed that there is conclusive scientific evidence that syringe exchange

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