TREATMENT ON DEMAND EXPANDING

Activist group to take on more community issues

NEW BEDFORD -- Treatment on Demand, known for its fight against chemical
addiction and its efforts to bring a needle exchange program to the city,
is branching out to fight for other social causes.

The grassroots group has expanded its charter to include social,
environmental, economic and global concerns.

Group leaders made the announcement at a press conference yesterday morning
at their Kempton Street center.

Officials there said they are not abandoning their efforts to provide more
treatment for addicts or prevent AIDS, but said they are branching out to
include a broader scope of issues that they say can directly affect both
drug use and AIDS levels.

"We are looking at how these two epidemics happen in the first place and
our analysis is that they are happening because of poverty and
discrimination," said Treatment on Demand board member Marlene Pollock.
"Things are taking a quantitative step in the worst direction."

The group says it will become involved in the fight against the two-year
limit on welfare and efforts to evict people from public housing, and said
it will get involved in the Bristol County sheriff's race. In the sheriff's
race, they want to try to focus political debate on drug treatment for
prisoners.

"There is a very negative attitude toward people who are in jail," said Ms.
Pollock. "We have found that 85 percent of prisoners have some sort of
addiction and should be getting some form of treatment and rehabilitation.
We will be involved in the sheriff's race because we feel rehabilitation is
a major issue."

Board members said the changes in the charter will allow the group to be
more active in community issues, both large and small. For instance, the
group is going to push for more open areas in the city's most dense
neighborhoods.

"Why we are pushing to have a new platform is so that we do not have our
hands tied when issues come up in the community," said Heather Rebeiro, a
board member.

"We can speak out as individuals, but as an organization, what business did
Treatment on Demand have in getting involved with the Morris Pina jail
death or the Morse Cutting Tool contamination? Now with a broader charter,
we can make our voices heard as an organization."

The group, which is now seeking "justice on demand," says it will also
focus on the city's youth.

"They are supposed to be our future but we are not really showing a bright
future, a hope for the future and our dreams," said Aaron Vaughan, also a
board member.

Treatment on Demand was founded in 1980 by two former addicts and has grown
to become one of the most active voices in the community in the war on AIDS.

The group fought to have the city consider a needle exchange program in
1996 but a referendum vote failed to pass. The group says it will no longer
seek a needle exchange program until voters in the city indicate otherwise.

Missing from yesterday's press conference was co-founder Gerald Ribeiro.
Mr. Ribeiro, who has AIDS, was too ill to attend.