Xavier Becerra: “Mr. Speaker, today something tragic is about to happen. Again. Like so many debates before this House, we are about to…”

“Mr. Speaker, today something tragic is about to happen. Again. Like so many debates before this House, we are about to allow the politics of fear to trump policies of reason. Logic tells us that if you have a problem and you can identify a sensible solution, your problem is on the way to being resolved. Here is the problem. Injection drug use is responsible for nearly 50 percent of all the new cases of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is responsible for 44 percent of all the cases reported for African-Americans, 44 percent of all the cases reported for Latinos, and 61 percent of all the cases reported for women. A sensible approach to a devastating problem as AIDS/HIV is, is needle exchange programs. It is one of the weapons we can use in an arsenal. HIV transmission is reduced when injection drug users are furnished with clean needles in exchange for dirty, potentially infected used ones. This is where the politics of fear comes into play. Those on the other side of this debate will tell you that needle exchange programs encourage illegal drug use and our streets will be overrun with drug addicts, and that is because we are offering them free needles. First of all, as we have already heard, the science does not bear that out.”