IN NEED OF NEEDLES

Program Draws Praise, Criticism By Handing Out Clean Needles To Drug Users

Susan Seitz sips hot chocolate in a Guerneville cafe while waiting for her
shift handing out clean needles to drug users.

She wears a T-shirt that says "Clean Needles Save Lives," and has with her
a book called "How to Stop Time: Heroin From A to Z." Around one wrist are
Buddhist prayer beads that the 48-year-old Cazadero resident uses for
meditation.

She will leave shortly for a private home just outside this tiny town to
help other volunteers set up shop: bags filled with unused needles, kits
that have clean water and bleach, literature that tells drug users where to
get help.

She wears rubber gloves during the two-hour shift but never handles dirty
needles, which are placed into a box marked bio-hazard by the users
themselves, who start arriving promptly at six.

Her job: to pass out bags containing bundles of 10 new needles, one for
each dirty needle turned in. The work is easy. The emotions are not.

"There's so much prejudice against this service," she said, acknowledging
the controversy surrounding needle exchange programs. "We already have one
(county) supervisor against us. They could say we're starting people on drugs."

County supervisors have provided about $30,000 annually to help needle
exchange efforts over the past four years. When the funding was last
renewed, Supervisor Paul Kelley cast the lone vote against the proposal,
saying that it was bad public policy to provide people with "instruments of
their own destruction."

Seitz doesn't see it that way.

"I'm saying these people have an illness," she said. "This is a public
health issue."

By volunteering, Seitz willingly enters the debate surrounding needle
programs, which supporters say curb the spread of diseases like AIDS and
Hepatitis C but critics argue encourage drug use.

When she told friends about her work, a few wrinkled their noses. She had
doubts, too.

"I thought, 'Would I be able to do this?' I didn't know any IV drug users
myself."

She said she's never injected drugs and didn't know anyone who did when she
signed on with the Sonoma County Hepatitis, AIDS and Risk Reduction
Program, or SHARP, in 1998.

Back then it was an underground program because handing out needles was
illegal in Sonoma County. The risk of being arrested, however, didn't deter
Seitz, who earned her stripes in civil disobedience in the 1960s while
attending college in San Francisco and protesting against the Vietnam War.

In her mind, volunteering to hand out needles is a small way of protesting
the so-called "War on Drugs," which she views as misguided and harmful.

Possessing a needle without a prescription remains illegal, but a change in
California law last year allows counties to offer needle programs if they
declare a health emergency, which Sonoma County did.

Sharing dirty needles is a major risk factor for transmitting diseases such
as AIDS, said Debra Thompson, a program manager with the Drug Abuse
Alternatives Center, the private nonprofit group that runs the needle
exchange program.

Last year, 5,000 people swapped needles through SHARP at sites in
Guerneville, Santa Rosa and Agua Caliente.

They were aided by Seitz and 24 other program volunteers. Thompson said
more volunteers are needed, and don't have to hand out needles if they
don't want to.

"I never pressure anyone to do anything that doesn't feel comfortable," she
said. "I provide them with lots of training and we meet once a month."

About half of the volunteers who work for the program are former addicts
who must be clean for at least two years to participate. The other half are
people like Seitz, who are drawn to help through altruism.

Seitz makes her living as a consultant to businesses and individuals in the
Chinese art of Feng Shui and teaches a community course at Santa Rosa
Junior College. She also volunteers making quilts that are sold to raise
money for the Fort Ross Fire Department and is a graduate of the Santa Rosa
Citizens Police Academy.

Her initial jitters about the needle program aside, she says she's never
felt any danger while volunteering and the mood is rarely grim.

"We very much enjoy each other," she said. "It's not at all somber. People
aren't furtively sneaking in and out with their needles."

In Guerneville, a man who supports the needle program donates the use of
his garage where the exchange takes place every Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m.
Besides clean needles, visitors are offered on-site HIV testing and can
talk to outreach workers about getting help for their addictions.

When she first started volunteering with the program, Seitz drove two hours
round-trip from Cazadero to Santa Rosa each week. Her commute has been
shortened with the Guerneville program, but she's no less committed to the
cause.

"The IV drug users are helping me," she said, explaining her motivation.
"They're helping me to open my heart."