JUST SAY NO VS. JUST SAY KNOW

Are you looking forward to an evening of smoking methamphetamine? Cover the
mouthpiece of your pipe with tape or rubber to keep cuts and burns at bay.
Looking for a way to take the edge off that post-cocaine crash? Swallow a
small amount of Valium.

All this advice and much, much more awaits any curious visitor to the Salt
Lake City office of The Intermountain Harm Reduction Project. An office
visit isn't altogether necessary, though. The group's literature is also
available at select coffee shops, vintage clothing stores, homeless
shelters, bars and head shops. It's all part of the organization's
ambitious mission to make risky behavior—the project prefers the words
"marginalized behavior"—safer for people who just can't shake drug habits
or prostitution.

It also marks a crucial, and sometimes controversial, shift in the field of
drug policy and education. Past programs such as D.A.R.E. drummed
abstinence and fear into anyone with questions about illegal drugs. The
Intermountain Harm Reduction Project, now passing its second year in Utah's
capital, also sends out warnings about the risks of drugs. At the same
time, however, its five staff members dispense rational, non-dramatic
advice to anyone who hasn 't successfully kicked the habit, be it speed,
heroine, cocaine or the popular rave drugs ecstasy, LSD and ketamine.
Covering the full range of all that's risky and racy, the project also has
loads of free condoms for prostitutes, plus tips on the best way to conduct
a safe "trick."

Drug addicts and prostitutes are people, too, after all. "We do everything
we can to get people off drugs or off the streets," said Luciano Colonna,
The Intermountain Harm Reduction Project's executive director. "But what if
treatment and all the advice in the world doesn't work? What happens then?
Do we throw away the person? Or do you work to keep people as safe from
harm as possible? Our community is made up of these people. By helping
these people we help our community. Drugs are everywhere and we need to
confront this problem in ways that are effective."

So, hitting the streets, the project distributes bleach kits to drug
injectors in hopes of stemming the spread of HIV and hepatitis. Addicts are
admonished to test a small amount of drug from a new supplier. One pamphlet
alone gives drug users all the information they'd need to avoid, or if
necessary deal with, an overdose.

The project has plenty of professional support. Both the American Medical
Association and the National Centers for Disease Control endorse its
methods. Locally, individuals from Utah Red Cross, the Utah State Health
Department, the Salt Lake County Division of Substance Abuse, the Salt Lake
Valley Health Department, Utah AIDS Foundation and Wasatch Homeless Health
Care collaborate in the project's aims. The Intermountain Harm Reduction
Project also racks up funding from county, state and federal sources. Both
the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Health and Human Services chip in,
Colonna said.

For more traditional commanders in America's "War on Drugs," there's a lot
not to like about the harm reduction approach. Unsurprisingly, they're
taken aback by the method's casual approach. They also point out that harm
reduction projects nationwide receive funding from the Lindesmith Center,
which in turn gets some of its funding from George Soros' Open Society
Institute. Soros, a U.S. business mogul and multimillionaire, has been
widely hissed and booed as "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."

Kathy Stewart, a D.A.R.E. officer of seven years who also mentors police
officers at the Lehi Police Department, wasn't amused or impressed with
certain Harm Reduction Coalition pamphlets. "I cannot believe it. I'm
totally amazed that people put that out," she said. "It certainly makes me
glad that I'm in the prevention end of drug education. In particular, I was
amazed at some of the statements. It's very misleading when they talk about
cocaine increasing stamina and alertness. It's almost as if they're saying
there's not a lot of risk involved."

Stewart also doubts that most drug users would even follow many of the
safety tips these pamphlets expound. Mostly, she's aghast that anyone would
suggest proper, safe or correct ways to administer illegal drugs. Matched
with Mayor Rocky Anderson's decision to nix the D.A.R.E. program in Salt
Lake City, pamphlets such as these should alarm anyone worried that drug
education is headed in the wrong direction.

"I've never seen anyone use drugs correctly. If a drug addict wants a fix,
they're going to take any tainted syringe or drug just to get that fix back
in their body," Stewart said. "We've got to teach people and kids that
there 's more to life. If you teach them that, you don't have to teach them
how to use drugs safely."

Colonna said he understands those kinds of concerns. But sometimes reality
based education works better than fear and judgment. Providing drug users
with useful information that may protect their health and well-being is
really no different than telling drivers to fasten their seatbelts, or
warning drinkers about the dangers of driving while intoxicated. Plus,
Colonna points out that the pamphlets are written by drug users for other
drug users. They are not meant for schoolchildren. The pamphlets simply try
to keep drug users as healthy as possible until they achieve abstinence.
Colonna disputes anyone arguing that drug addicts don't care about their
health.

"Drug users and alcoholics show up at meetings every day trying to get
sober. In most cases, they show up voluntarily," he said. "To say that
these people have a total disregard for their health disregards the fact
that most people want to get clean and return quality to their lives."

Rich Mrazik, a care coordinator at the Fourth Street Clinic for homeless
people, said he's seen firsthand the benefit of harm reduction pamphlets
such as "H Is for Heroin," "S Is for Speed" and "C Is for Cocaine."

"A lot of users respond well to learning about the dangers of these
substances without a message full of moral overtones," Mrazik said. "But
supervisors at overflow shelters were sometimes less than thrilled that we
were handing out bleach kits. They thought it would somehow make it easier
for people to inject."

At the end of the day, however, effective drug policy is what matters most.
Colonna won't dismiss the D.A.R.E. anti-drug program out of hand. His
daughter enrolled in it and learned a lot, he said. But he's of the same
mind as Salt Lake City's mayor. "From the literature I've seen, it's not
effective in keeping kids away from drugs," Colonna said. "Obviously
abstinence would be the best way to go. But the reality is that a
significant number of people don't get off of drugs. We're here for them.
My job is to engage them so that they don't get hepatitis or AIDS,
overdose, or go to jail. We cannot marginalize these people so completely
that we lose them."