AUSTIN – The only government-sanctioned needle-exchange program in Texas has been quashed before it could begin.

State Attorney General Greg Abbott said Monday that state drug laws prevent a Bexar County pilot program from moving forward.

San Antonio prosecutors said that in light of the decision, they will probably move forward with their case against a 73-year-old chaplain, Bill Day, who has suffered from AIDS for 10 years and who county health officials say is a pioneer in area efforts to stop the spread of AIDS among addicts.

Mr. Day and two others were ticketed for passing out needles this year under a nonprofit program that is much like those being run unimpeded, and under the official radar, in every other major metro area in the state, including Dallas.

The irony is that Bexar County is the only place in Texas that has a law on the books intended to authorize a syringe-exchange program. And Texas is the only state in the country without a government-sanctioned program in place.

Prosecutors had withheld charges against Mr. Day pending Mr. Abbott's decision. Now, Mr. Day faces up to a year in jail if convicted of the Class A misdemeanor, though Bexar County prosecutors doubt the redheaded retiree would get that kind of harsh punishment.

"Nobody expects that Mr. Day will go to jail," said First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg. "If people think that he's well-intentioned, that's a punishment issue, not a guilt or innocence issue."

An attorney for Mr. Day, Neel Lane, said Mr. Abbott's decision gives Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed, a Republican who has warned since last summer that she would prosecute people who handed out needles, "the discretion to effectively veto this law passed by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Perry."

Mr. Lane is a San Antonio attorney with Dallas-based Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld who has taken Mr. Day's case for free.

Mr. Abbott said Monday that the law, which had the support of Republican and Democratic lawmakers in the area, isn't written clearly enough to protect participants in the program from being arrested under current laws banning the distribution of paraphernalia.

And while the intent of the law may have been to create a program, the decision said, it was up to the Legislature to fix the language.

The program's sponsor in the Legislature vowed to make it one of her priorities in the next legislative session, which starts in January.

"Obviously, I am terribly disappointed," said Rep. Ruth Jones McLendon, D-San Antonio, who sponsored the bill. "The outcome [with the needle exchange] would have been much more effective in saving thousands of lives and saving millions of taxpayer dollars at the same time."

The opinion comes as Texas struggles to catch up to the 49 other states in the nation that have government-sanctioned syringe exchange programs, which national health officials and experts insist reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS in the addict community.

Law-and-order politicians argue that it encourages drug use and sends mixed signals to the community that the government condones using illegal drugs.