Nearly one third of the 95 intravenous drug users enrolled in the Cambridge branch of the state's pilot needle exchange program have asked for referrals to drug treatment options, according to Cambridge site coordinator George Arlos.

The Cambridge branch is part of a state-wide effort organized by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as a year-long experiment.

The program trades intravenous drug users' contaminated or infected needles for clean ones.

Cambridge Cares About AIDS is the oversight organization that runs the city's needle exchange sites.

"Substance abuse is reversible; AIDS is not," Arlos said. The purpose of the program is to "keep people safe [from AIDS] until they are ready to go into drug treatment," he said.

Arlos said the increased number of requests treatment referrals is due in part to the degree of trust which he is able to establish with clients of the needle exchange program.

"I care whether they live or die," Arlos said.

Those enrolled with either Cambridge Cares About AIDS or the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the Boston coordinating group, are exempt from the Massachusetts law that outlaws the possession of syringes without a prescription, Arlos said.

"That in itself is a very powerful AIDS intervention," Arlos said. "[Otherwise] people wind up using the syringes of others brave enough to carry them."

The Cambridge pilot program has been in effect at three area sites, including one near the First Church in Cambridge in Harvard Square, since May, Arlos said.

When first proposed in 1988, the program sparked intense debate among state and city officials and religious leaders.

In October 1993, the state legislature approved $100,000 in state funding for implementation in any city that requested it.

According to Peter Eberland, communications coordinator for the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, Boston and Cambridge were the only two cities to ask for the program, though other cities have high numbers of intravenous drug users.

Arlos said that it is difficult to estimate the number of intravenous drug users in Cambridge.

"Perhaps a thousand," he said.

Eberland said needle-exchange programs have multiple benefits.

"In every single program in the country and around the world, there has been a reduction in needle sharing and an increased referral of people to drug treatment," he said.

Arlos also cited studies showing that the programs have not increased drug usage.

In 1992, syringe sharing became the number one mode of AIDS infection in Massachusetts, surpassing male homosexual sex, according statistics from the Massachusetts Department of Health quoted in a Boston Globe article Thursday.

According to Eberland, the rate of drug treatment referrals in Boston and Cambridge is the highest of any program in the country.

Thirteen percent of the Massachusetts program's 1200 drug users have undergone treatment since they enrolled, the Boston Globe reported.

In March, the state department of public health will collect and evaluate data from the program.

Based on this evaluation, the department will make policy recommendations to the state legislature, Arlos said.