By 1990, syringe sharing among injection drug users had increased the spread of HIV/AIDS to crisis proportions in our community. Activists responded by handing out clean injection equipment to drug users who usually shared contaminated syringes. At that time, strict New York drug paraphernalia laws made it difficult and costly to obtain clean syringes.

Activists reasoned that if drug users had easier access to clean syringes, the spread of HIV could be dramatically reduced. This premise has been proven true; not only on the Lower East Side but also everywhere in the world that syringe exchange has been put into practice-from Europe to Russia to Southeast Asia. It has also been proven conclusively that access to clean syringes does not in any way increase drug use. Instead, it simply mitigates the effect of that drug use, which will occur anyway.

At LESHRC, our syringe exchange program is still at the core of our work. As many as 700 people come through our door each week to exchange syringes. Many of these people are in crisis, which can increase their chaotic drug use. Ironically, because of their drug use, these people have a very limited number of places where they can go for help. But time and again, we've made sure that they can—and do—come to us. Between July 1, 1998, and June 30, 1999, we provided needle exchange services to 6,297 people. We completed a total of 20,357 exchanges and enrolled 985 new people in our needle exchange program.

It's important for our needle exchange program to have a consistent presence in the community, so people know that they can rely on us. Our needle exchange is open six days a week, Monday through Saturday. We're even open on Thanksgiving, Labor Day, Memorial Day and Christmas, unless it falls on a Sunday.

Although our syringe exchange services often bring people through our door, it's our other services that often keep them connected with us. Through the years, we've been able to greatly broaden the types of services we offer drug users. All together, these services can help stabilize drug users' lives and support them to build a more positive future.