Political Quotes

“The District of Columbia is facing the worst HIV/AIDS epidemic in America, nine times worse than the national average. The medical community and the law enforcement community of this city have asked us to give them the tools and weapons to fight this epidemic. The needle exchange program has proven successful in fighting this epidemic. That is why we have to defeat the Allen amendment. To do otherwise is to ignore the American Medical Association and every major public health group that has told us that needle exchange programs work. To reject the medical and scientific evidence and to take away this weapon against the war on drugs and the war on HIV and AIDS is wrong. We appropriate less than 10 percent of the funds the district will spend out of Congress. The rest is their own money, and they are only asking to spend their own money as 34 other States do for programs that they think are important to protect their citizens. We need to keep this program in place.”