THE POINT DOING VITAL WORK ON THE FRONT LINES

Program Keeps Discarded Needles Off The Streets, Stops Addicts From
Getting HIV, Helps Some Turn Their Lives Around

Sudbury would be a different city were it not for its needle exchange program.

The Point distributed 150,000 clean needles to drug addicts last
year, and 95 to 99 per cent of them were returned to its headquarters
at 105 Elm St.

Otherwise, Sudbury's streets would be littered with needles discarded
by illegal drug users.

More people would be infected with HIV.

There would be more cases of full-blown AIDS. The incidence of
hepatitis C would be significantly higher.

Hundreds of drug addicts would not have had access to a wide range of
programs and services designed to help them change their lives and
kick their habit.

And Doris Schwar would never have been visited by a successful young
man whose name she is still struggling to remember.

"Here I am. Look at me now," he told Schwar when he returned to tell
her a piece of advice she had given him years earlier had helped the
former addict transform his life.

He was now living in a five-bedroom

home in Burlington. He owned a successful business. He was happily
married and had three children. He owed it all to her.

It's stories like this -- and she has dozens of them -- that keep
Schwar working as program co-ordinator for The Point.

Schwar was among those who worked "from the beginning" in August 1992
with the late Jimmy Park, founder of the Sudbury Action Centre for
Youth, former medical officer of health Dr. Robin Bolton and Vicki
Kett of ACCESS AIDS Sudbury to launch the program.

She won't publicly take issue with Tony Clement's criticism of
Insite, North America's only safe injection site, located in
Vancouver. But she rolls her eyes when you ask her about Canada's
health minister.

Schwar quickly points out The Point is a safe needle exchange, not a
safe injection site. Clement has questioned the ethics of physicians
who support the use of supervised injection sites for addicts. Schwar
is proud The Point has the best success rate for needle returns in
Ontario, possibly Canada.

Before The Point began operating, city police would arrest people in
possession of dirty needles and addicts would just "ditch them" on
the street. Schwar says she has heard of no such incidents recently
and is grateful for the co-operation of police.

Last year, the program was transferred from the jurisdiction of the
health unit to the Sudbury Action Centre for Youth, an organization
that works with troubled people of all ages. Schwar is one of three
part-time employees of The Point, which is funded indirectly through
the Ministry of Health and Long- Term Care.

Mardi Taylor is the new executive director of Sudbury Action Centre for Youth.

The way Taylor sees it, it is better for addicts to "come here than
to be out there. We need the community to support us."

Sixteen years after it begun, Schwar is as convinced as ever that the
program is worthwhile. In a field in which there is a very high rate
of burnout, Schwar remains philosophical about the work she does.

"I'm not in charge of saving people," she says. "I just delight in
them doing well."