NARCAN STANCE ENDANGERS LIVES

Caring and compassion for people in need is the hallmark of a
progressive community. Unfortunately, Worcester has not always
measured up to that standard. The City Council steadfastly rejected
needle exchange despite overwhelming evidence that it saves lives.
Oral health care was abandoned when fear-mongering defeated
fluoridation. While eradicating panhandling became a municipal
priority, handling homelessness was reduced to demands to close the
PIP shelter, the last resort for people who have nowhere else to go.

The latest display of astonishing callousness in the face of a public
health emergency came from City Councilor Barbara Haller and William
Breault, a self-appointed community activist who uses demagoguery and
intimidation to get his way. Under the pretext of protecting public
safety, they have led opposition to measures designed to help people
endangered by drug addiction, mental illness, homelessness and
related problems, causing considerable harm over the years. But this
time they went too far.

The state Department of Public Health awarded Worcester $300,000 to
prevent death by overdose from heroin and other opiates. The program
provides limited access to Narcan, a prescription medication that
allows addicts to recover from otherwise fatal overdoses. "This
funding is under the guise of drug prevention, but this is more about
assisting than preventing," Mr. Breault declared. He and Ms. Haller
sent a letter to a long list of local, state and federal officials,
decrying "so-called harm reduction policies of our public health
leadership" that "serve to camouflage their aggressive actions for
the acceptance and normalization of illegal drug use."

They accused AIDS Project Worcester, one of the organizations invited
to review the state grant, of being part of the "legalization-creep
movement." They charged the agency with "establishing its own
pharmacy -- a de facto needle exchange, despite three bona fide
council votes against needle exchange." They noted that "Worcester
has a long history of fighting against paternalistic state efforts to
dilute local control" and warned Lt. Gov. Timothy P. Murray to
"remember his Worcester roots and important council votes on related
topics." They declared: "Common sense tells us that Narcan gives
addicts a sense of confidence that they can take their 'high' to the
point of overdose and live to tell the tale."

APW Executive Director Joe McKee rebutted the Haller-Breault letter,
pointing out that every pharmacy in the city and state are "de facto
needle exchange programs" because they can sell syringes legally to
anyone over age 18. He stressed that harm and risk reduction is sound
public health strategy practiced all over the world, involving a
wider variety of illnesses. He noted that among the local
organizations supporting the state grant were the police department,
the district attorney's office, the sheriff's department and the
Worcester County Probation Office.

The Narcan controversy prompted me to visit APW for a talk with David
T. Bunker, president of the board of directors, Jesse Pack,
coordinator of prevention and education, Priscilla Rodriguez,
director of client services, and Daniel Apelian, a pharmacist and
owner of ALL Care Pharmacy that will open agency headquarters on
Green Street to serve both APW clients and the general public.

For more than 20 years, APW has strived to fight HIV/AIDS throughout
Central Massachusetts by providing information, promoting prevention
measures and offering a wide variety of services to people infected
with the deadly disease. As new drugs became available to combat the
virus, the core mission has shifted from helping sufferers to die
with dignity to helping them to live with dignity in the face of
discrimination, economic ravages and the stigma associated with the disease.

The agency is broadening its focus to reconnect with the gay,
lesbian, bisexual and transgender communities. It is reaching out to
the African-American and Hispanic population, as well as to new
immigrants from Africa, Brazil and the Azores, who are particularly
hard hit by infection. In collaboration with Daybreak, a new
initiative is aimed at women to recognize the connection between
domestic abuse and HIV/AIDS.

Additional space will be devoted to a living center to help clients
to better cope with illness and to adjust to existence in the
community at large. A new training center is expected to enhance the
agency's visibility, enable it to attract additional funding and
share its 20 years of expertise nationwide and internationally.
"We're building a network to help people around the world with AIDS
services," Mr. Bunker said. "We already have collaborative efforts in
the Ukraine, the Czech Republic and China."

Incorporated in 1987, APW has 25 full- and part-time employees,
several of them personally touched by the disease, a $1.63 million
annual budget and an 18-member volunteer board. It serves 600
HIV/AIDS infected persons, a mere fraction of the 2,400 people the
state Department of Public Health estimates are infected in Central
Massachusetts. Mr. Bunker expects the agency to double its size in
about three years.

Clearly, Ms. Haller and Mr. Breault chose the wrong target for their
woefully ill-advised attack. Commenting on the use of Narcan in a
letter to The People's Forum, William Piper of the Washington-based
Drug Policy Alliance, summed it up well: "The choice is simple: Save
lives or let people die. We know what Mr. Breault and Ms. Haller
prefer. Families of overdose victims should be outraged at their
indifference to human life." So should everybody else.