Each year the injection-related AIDS epidemic in California affects more people. In order to slow the spread of AIDS among persons who inject drugs in California and elsewhere, the Clinton Administration urgently needs to end the federal ban on funding clean needle programs.

Health Emergency in California

• Through the end of 1996, some 19,300 California residents age 13 and over had
  injection-related AIDS or had died from it.
• California has the fourteenth highest injection-related AIDS rate in the nation.
• About 20 percent of California's AIDS cases are injection-related. 

The crisis among African Americans and Latinos

• Through the end of 1996, some 5,900 African Americans and 3,500 Latinos living
  in California had injection-related AIDS or had died from it.
• The rate of injection-related AIDS cases among blacks in California is 6 times
  higher than the rate for whites. The rate for Latinos is about the same as the rate for whites. 

The future: thousands of all races at risk in California

For California's major metropolitan areas, Dr. Scott Holmberg of the Centers for Disease Control estimates that the number of uninfected persons who inject drugs and who thus are at risk of getting HIV as follows:

Saving lives and saving tax dollars

Each AIDS illness and death exacts an uncountable cost in human pain and suffering. Each AIDS illness and death has a very countable cost in dollars. Using sophisticated mathematical models, a University of California team of investigators estimates that it costs between $4,000 and $12,000 in clean needle program expenses for each HIV infection averted over a five-year period. This is, of course, far lower than the estimated $119,000 lifetime cost of treating an HIV-infected person.

 Lifting the ban on federal funding of clean needle programs will permit communities in California to save many lives that will otherwise be lost. Nationally, ending the ban will save billions of federal health care dollars.

Prepared by the Dogwood Center, PO Box 187, Princeton, NJ. Tel: 609-924-4797. Fax: 609-252-1464. email: [email protected] The information on population and on injection-related AIDS cases for persons age 13 and over is from special tabulations from the Census Bureau and the Centers for Disease Control. Injection-related AIDS cases include AIDS cases among the following risk groups: heterosexual persons who inject drugs; men who have sex with men and inject drugs; and the heterosexual sexual partners of persons who inject drugs.

Web presentation co-sponsored by the Dogwood Center, the Drug Reform Coordination Network, and Safe Works AIDS Project.

The Epidemic of Drug-Related AIDS

DRCNet Topics in Depth Series