CELLUCCI LEAVES BEHIND THE HOT ISSUE OF NEEDLE EXCHANGE

Gov. Jane M. Swift has inherited from her predecessor any number of
political hot potatoes. One of those is the Cellucci-Swift administration's
muted support of efforts by health groups around the state to initiate
programs providing intravenous drug users with clean needles.

Attempts to implement such programs have run into popular and official
resistance in most communities, including Worcester, where the City Council
has twice turned thumbs down, most recently on a 7-4 vote in January 1999.
Only Cambridge, Boston, Provincetown and Northampton have put programs into
effect.

Mr. Cellucci and his Department of Public Health have both been in favor of
such programs. Unlike his health department, Mr. Cellucci had a chance to
change the legal requirement for local approval, but he chose not to.

The opportunity arose late last summer, when Sen. James P. Jajuga,
D-Methuen, managed to attach to the state budget legislation that would
have given the Department of Public Health authority to establish clean
needle programs without local political approval. In the name of local
control, Mr. Cellucci vetoed that provision, all the while urging his
Department of Public Health to do more to educate the public and convince
municipal authorities of the need to implement such programs.

Mr. Cellucci spoke as though redoubled educational efforts by the
Department of Public Health should be regarded as an alternative to state
mandated programs. Local officials don't tend to see it that way at all.
People who have taken a stance against needle exchange don't cotton easily
to publicly funded efforts to convince their constituents that they were wrong.

Part of the Department of Public health's effort was embodied in a $10,000
grant to the Henry Lee Willis Center in Worcester to conduct a survey of
local attitudes toward needle exchange and also to educate the public on
how such a program could slow the HIV/AIDS epidemic among the city's
intravenous drug users. When District 2 Councilor Michael C. Perotto heard
about the grant he questioned whether the city should allocate any
block-grant funding to agencies that did not follow the council's position
against needle exchange. He was persuaded by his colleagues to back off.

Things took a different course in Fitchburg. After city officials expressed
renewed opposition to needle exchange, the Gardner Visiting Nursing
Association -- which had also received a $10,000 Department of Public
Health grant to educate the local public -- withdrew from that role.

As politicians are wont to do, Mr. Cellucci mixed elements that could very
well have been in conflict with one another. He was combining a rhetorical
stance in favor of needle exchange with a rhetorical stance in favor of
local control. Since local control can thwart needle exchange, he was in
effect putting local control first. As he slips off to Ottawa local control
rather than public health may be becoming the main political issue.

Standing up for its own power, the Worcester City Council went on record
9-2 against the Jajuga amendment last year. This year, Fitchburg's council
has beaten Worcester's to the draw, voting unanimously to oppose new
legislation filed by Mr. Jajuga. Ward 6 Councilor Ralph R. Romano III
summed up where the debate seems to be heading. "Now it's an issue of local
control," Mr. Romano said, "and no matter where you stand on the issue (of
needle exchange), all of us need to take that to heart."

The spotlight will soon be on the renewed effort of Mr. Jajuga, author of
the legislation vetoed by Mr. Cellucci last year, to change the law. He is
back with a new bill to allow the Department of Public Health to act
without having to seek any form of official local approval. Hearings have
yet to be scheduled on the Jajuga legislation, but they will undoubtedly
give full vent to people, including some from Worcester, who don't want a
program forced upon their communities. It will probably take a strong stand
by legislative leaders to overcome local opposition to the proposal.

All of the resistance may give the impression that public opinion is
staunchly opposed to needle exchange programs. On the other hand, a poll
commissioned last year by the McCormack Institute at the University of
Massachusetts at Boston found that 62 percent of Massachusetts residents
favored needle exchange, with support appearing across virtually all
demographic groups.

The Worcester City Council, which undoubtedly believes it has been
reflecting the will of the city's residents and voters in resisting needle
exchange, may have a chance this year to find out. One of its committees is
considering two petitions filed by community activist William S. Coleman
III, asking that two questions on the subject be placed on the November ballot.

One would ask voters if they feel information regarding the transmission
and spread of HIV/AIDS has so far been presented in a way that allows them
to make an informed decision on the establishment of a needle exchange
program in Worcester. The other would ask if voters support the
establishment of a state-funded needle exchange program, combined with drug
treatment on demand, in Worcester.

The first of those questions, if it gets on the ballot and gets some
discussion, might help people to understand the critical link between
intravenous drug use and the spread of HIV/AIDS, which many people
undoubtedly continue to regard as a disease that is almost always
transmitted sexually.

The second question would be the more important one, although its outcome
and effects are impossible to predict. Advocates of needle exchange point
repeatedly to that 62 percent support in the McCormack Institute poll, but
they may not really be ready to take their chances at the polls. A ballot
question might produce an educational discussion of the public health
issues, or it might just give people a change to express their negative
feelings about HIV/AIDS and about illegal drug use.

Billboards have sprouted along Interstate 290 in support of needle
exchange, and advertisements have begun to appear on Worcester radio
stations. Maybe a real local campaign could get under way, and Worcester
could lead the state in finding out just how hot a potato Mr. Cellucci has
left Ms. Swift and the rest of us to toss around.