Source:   The StarLedger,1 Star Ledger Plaza,Newark, NJ 071021200
Pubdate:  April 28 1997
Contact:  Needle activist insists law hinders AIDS battle
  
By Gail Ferguson Jones STAR LEDGER STAFF

  Since her arrest for distributing clean hypodermic needles to drug addicts 
in New Brunswick a year ago, Diane McCague is more convinced than ever 
that the law she is accused of violating is contrary to efforts to halt the 
spread of the AIDS virus.

  McCague, 37, founder of the Chai Project, and volunteer Thomas Scozzarre, 
21, were charged on April 18, 1996, with a disorderly persons offense for the
distribution of drug paraphernalia, which carries penalties of up to six 
months in jail and a maximum fine of $1,000.

  While awaiting a municipal court hearing scheduled for June 24 in New 
Brunswick, their attorneys are appealing a Superior Court judge's decision 
earlier this month not to dismiss the charges.

  "There's no evidence that needle exchanges feed HIV," said McCague, of 
Highland Park. "We were not breaking the law. I'm just that much more 
convinced that I'm not guilty.

  "In most states, you can buy syringes over the counter," she said.

  However, in New Jersey, which leads the nation in the spread of the HIV 
virus through intravenous drug use, syringes are sold by prescription only, 
while 45 states allow overthecounter sales.

  Meanwhile, medical groups contend that the spread of the HIV virus can be 
halted through needleexchange programs, saving thousands of lives and 
hundreds of millions of dollars in medical costs.
        
  The virus is spread through the exchange of bodily fluids, putting 
intravenous drug users who share needles at high risk.

  "The law is actually creating more harm. The things it was meant to 
address, it hasn't," said McCague, referring to efforts to stem drug 
addiction.

  "By making needle exchange illegal, you push it underground so that people 
actually pay more," she said.

  She contends that addicts strapped for cash are more likely to share a used 
needle than to pay the higher cost of purchasing clean needles without a 
prescription.

    Although vowing at the time of their arrests to continue with the needle
distribution program, under which the Chai Project claims to have distributed
hundreds of syringes, McCague and Scozzare are now very closemouthed about 
their activities.

  The organization was established in 1994 and operates from an unknown 
headquarters with about a dozen volunteers.

  "We don't make public comment about whether we are continuing with what we 
do," McCague said. "My legal understanding is more comprehensive now. When 
you have three attorneys handling your defense, you learn a little bit more 
about the law."

  Of the addicts seeking clean hypodermic needles, she said, "They know how 
to find us.

  "By the time we got arrested, we had made contact with 400 needledependent 
addicts," McCague said.

  She maintains that needleexchange programs are being conducted elsewhere 
in New Jersey without interference from law enforcement. "I have direct 
knowledge of one group and indirect knowledge of at least two others,"  
McCague said.

  "Our feeling is that needle exchange definitely works," said Scozzare, who 
met McCague on the job. Neither will say where they work or what they do for 
a living.

  "I am saving people's lives because I do it," he said.
 
   Attorneys Wanda Akin of Newark and Alan Silber of Weehawken are heading a 
legal team that is working probono. Their efforts are aimed at dismissal of 
the charges.

  "The conduct in question is not prohibited," Silber maintains.

John