The State - News from Oct. 21, 1987

Public health officials said there has been an alarming surge in AIDS cases among drug addicts in California and pleaded for more money to fight the deadly disease. At a joint hearing in San Francisco of the state Senate Select Committee on Substance Abuse and the Select Committee on AIDS, Dr. John Newmeyer testified that while only 2% of California’s estimated 9,500 AIDS cases are drug addicts, the infection rate among this group is doubling each year. Newmeyer, of the Haight Ashbury Free Clinic in San Francisco, said the doubling in the infection rate among drug addicts is even more serious because they are primarily responsible for the spread of the disease to their heterosexual partners and to children.