SPINAL TRAP:

Why Obama Isn't Funding Needle Exchange Programs (Maia Szalavitz, May. 16, 2009, TIME)

Buried on page 795 of President Obama's budget, released last Thursday, is a paragraph banning the federal funding of needle-exchange programs for drug addicts — an apparent about-face on his campaign promise to overturn that longstanding ban. To the further consternation of AIDS and addiction activists, a statement of support for needle exchange was recently removed from the White House website. [...]

The funding ban was introduced by conservative Senator Jesse Helms, and Democrats — wary of being cast as soft on drugs — have been reluctant to reverse it ever since. In 1998, President Clinton said he intended to lift the ban, under a provision in place at the time that allowed the President to do so if the science proved convincing. Although the Clinton Administration admitted the evidence was there, at the last minute, drug czar Barry McCaffrey managed to convince the President that "sending the right message" on drugs was more important — a move that Clinton later said he regretted.

(When candidate Hillary Clinton was asked during the last presidential campaign whether she would lift the ban, she, too, punted, conceding that the choice was political. Pressed at a campaign stop in July 2007, she said she would "as much spine as we possibly can" on AIDS funding and needle exchange.)

Now that it's up to him, Obama's spine appears to have weakened too.

He can't afford to be seen as Superfly.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 16, 2009 11:38 AM