Preaching abstinence
is not enoughThe issue: Distribution of
condoms and clean needles in
Chinatown has drawn criticism.
CRACKING down on prostitution and illegal drug use while handing out free condoms and sterile needles may seem incongruous, but it is not. While campaigns against those crimes should emphasize abstinence, they should not preclude measures aimed at stopping the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, as the state Health Department, in effect, has done.Some members of the Downtown Neighborhood Board are upset that the department's Community Health Outreach Worker Project to Prevent AIDS has been distributing condoms and needles in Chinatown. The condoms and needles have little if any effect on their recipients' behavior but a significant effect on their health. Distribution should continue.
Cindy Sharp of the American Heart Association disagrees, fearing that handing out free condoms and needles encourages illicit behavior. "It's like saying here's the clean needles so go and do your drugs and here's the condom so continue the prostitution because we're not going to condemn you for it."
The U.S. military used similar reasoning during World War I, when it threatened courts-martial for contracting venereal diseases and provided after-the-fact medical treatment instead of condoms to soldiers tempted by French prostitutes. It didn't work. More than 383,000 soldiers caught venereal diseases over a 212-year period, resulting in seven million days of lost service. Recognizing its mistake, the military in World War II distributed 50 million condoms along with the motto, "If you can't say no, take a pro."
The same holds true with providing sterile needles to intravenous drug users. Again, opponents argue that the only acceptable approach for preventing infection is abstinence. This assumes, absurdly, that people become intravenous drug users -- drug addicts -- because clean needles are available.
More than 200,000 syringes a year are distributed by the Health Department, and the results are telling: One-third of all AIDS cases nationally -- but only 17 percent in Hawaii -- are related to drug injections. Only 1 percent of Hawaii drug users by injection are infected with HIV, compared with 8 percent more than a decade ago.
Distributing condoms and needles does not counter the efforts of the federal-state-county Weed & Seed program. Indeed, as Assistant U.S. Attorney Constance Hassell explains, the distribution of condoms and needles is part of the effort to weed out drugs by intervening and preventing the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
The ambiguous report from a legislative committee examining the costs and effectiveness of the state's efforts to comply with the Felix consent decree reflects precisely what the panel suspected -- that no one knows the price tag or whether the money was well spent. Felix compliance
rife with questionsThe issue: A legislative
investigation of special education
costs turns up myriad problems.With state revenues dwindling, this financial disarray cannot continue and, above all, cannot come at the expense of children with special educational needs. The state Legislature should authorize the committee to further investigate and should expand the state auditor's powers to allow her to delve deeper into the problem.
In the mad rush to meet requirements ordered by the federal court, it appears the state spent taxpayer dollars without proper accountability. The committee determined the cost thus far to be $1.5 billion. However, because it was denied information about other funding sources, such as federal impact aid, the committee reported that the total likely was higher. Yet not one agency -- from the Department of Education and the Department of Health to the Attorney General's Office and the Board of Education -- was able to supply the committee with complete and accurate data.
The committee's review was further hampered by the involvement of the federal court, which rejected the panel's attempts to question the people whom the court appointed to monitor and initiate special education programs. The report hints that some involved may have used their work with the state to augment their private businesses. However, unable to include them in the inquiry, the committee was left to just guess.
The investigation turned up possible fraudulent billings; in one case a therapist charged 127 hours of work for one day. It uncovered what appeared to be questionable use of funds appropriated specifically for special education. For example, the DOE asked for funds for laptop computers it said were to be used by special education student services coordinators and teachers. Instead, it bought laptops for all of its coordinators as well as 140 teacher positions that remained vacant, leaving those computers idle or used for purposes other than Felix compliance.
The committee also found several incidents of state employees in possible conflicts of interest, such as directing contracts to businesses in which they had financial interests or quitting their state jobs to set up businesses that would receive contracts.
All in all, the committee raised more questions than it could answer. What is clear, however, is that Felix compliance has brought with it a tangle of accounting problems and inefficient use of public funds. With the program wide open to abuse and exploitation, it is imperative that state officials and lawmakers impose controls to stop the fiscal bleeding.
Published by Oahu Publications Inc., a subsidiary of Black Press.Don Kendall, Publisher
Frank Bridgewater, managing editor 529-4791; fbridgewater@starbulletin.com
Michael Rovner, assistant managing editor 529-4768; mrovner@starbulletin.com
Lucy Young-Oda, assistant managing editor 529-4762; lyoungoda@starbulletin.comRichard Halloran, editorial page director, 529-4790; rhalloran@starbulletin.com
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