(CNN)If
someone told you that your city had started a program providing clean
needles to injecting drug users, would that make you want to start
injecting drugs yourself? The answer, of course, would be no. Yet for
decades, many have stood by the belief that such programs, known as
syringe exchange or syringe services programs, promote and encourage
drug use. Indeed, for Congress, it became the rationale behind a ban
implemented in 1988 that
prohibits the use of federal funds for these programs.