Activists in New Jersey are marking the 25th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic by calling on state lawmakers to legalize needle-exchange programs to prevent the spread of the disease, the Press of Atlantic City reported June 4.

Eighteen years after the first needle-exchange program was launched in Tacoma, Wash., to prevent AIDS among IV-drug users, New Jersey still outlaws giving clean needles to addicts in exchange for dirty ones. Supporters of needle exchange have been trying to get a bill through the New Jersey legislature for more than a decade.

The state also is the only one besides Delaware not to allow needle sales without a prescription. An estimated 45 percent of AIDS cases in New Jersey are caused by shared needles, twice the national average.

"No doubt there will be lots of talk in Trenton this year about how far we've come in the battle against HIV and AIDS," said Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey's Roseanne Scotti. "But the real issue is how far we still have to go. The issue everyone should be talking about and the legislature should be doing something about is sterile syringe access."

Gov. Jon S. Corzine, state Senate President Richard Codey, and Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts, Jr., all support needle exchange. But opponents include Republican senators and key lawmaker Sen. Ronald Rice, a Newark Democrat who sits on the Senate health committee.

"So far, nothing has changed," said needle-exchange supporter Sen. Joseph Vitale. "There isn't support in the committee to advance the bill. I'm not going to go through the exercise of having a hearing and a vote until such time as there is enough support to pass it through. It's going to take more time."

Still, said Scotti, "I think this is the best position we've ever been in on this issue. The governor is speaking out on it frequently, without being prompted by the press, and he seems to be pushing the legislature. I believe we're very close."