6-1-2007

The Texas Observer

The Damage Done

A simple piece of legislation that would have saved lives and money expired in committee on May 19, despite a majority of support in both the House and the Senate. Senate Bill 308 by Sen. Robert Deuell (R-Greenville), would legalize programs that exchange clean syringes for dirty ones for intravenous drug users—a policy that has unfailingly reduced the spread of diseases like HIV and hepatitis C in a number of cities across the world.

SB 308 passed out of the Senate with a vote of 23-8 on April 27 and moved on to the House Public Health committee, where chairwoman Rep. Dianne White Delisi (R-Temple) blocked it. She set a hearing for the bill as part of a deal with Deuell, but says it was understood that a vote would never be called.

“I was not persuaded that the public health advantages outweigh my concerns and the concerns of my constituents about ensuring the availability of needles to illegal drug users,” Delisi says.

Tracey Hayes of the ACLU of Texas says the bill would have had six supporting votes in the committee – more than enough to pass it along. Any opposition to this bipartisan policy stems from a fear by some that the issue would be used against them in political campaigns, she says.

Needle exchange is anything but radical in the medical community. Among the bill’s supporters are the Texas Medical Association, the Texas Hospital Association, and Delisi’s own Temple hospital, the Scott & White Center for Healthcare Policy.

Given the $385,000 an uninsured HIV/AIDS patient typically costs the state, any measure that would prevent the spread of the disease can only be seen as fiscally conservative. Dr. Peter Lurie of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group testified before the Senate Health and Human Services committee that 200 to 400 new HIV cases could be prevented in six Texas counties by 2020 if needle exchange programs are implemented. Nearly every other state has a policy allowing for syringe exchange, Hayes says.

Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D-San Antonio) proposed a needle exchange program for Bexar County as an amendment on another bill on May 21. The House passed the amendment 71-60. The votes are there in both houses for a larger program.

Perhaps Delisi was unconvinced because she didn’t show up for the hearing on the bill—in the committee she chairs. Delisi didn’t see a need. “Oh, that legislation has been around for years,” she says.