COUNCIL BACKS BILL TO LIMIT NEEDLE-EXCHANGE PROGRAM

WOONSOCKET -- The City Council unanimously agreed to back a bill pending in
the General Assembly that would prohibit the location of any hypodermic
needle-exchange van or center within 300 yards of parks, playgrounds,
schools and churches.

The bill has been referred to the House Subcommittee on Health, Education
and Welfare. It was introduced by Rep. Todd R. Brien of Woonsocket in
January after local lawmakers learned of a state Health Department-financed
needle-exchange van distributing clean needles, syringes, condoms and
literature to intravenous drug users in a parking lot next to World War II
Veterans Memorial Park.

Council members described the needle-exchange program, in which drug users
trade their used needles for clean ones, as a public-safety menace and one
that would likely send a confusing "double message" about drug use to children.

"I'm having a big problem with this," said Councilwoman Suzanne J.
Vadenais, a licensed practical nurse at St. Antoine Residence in North
Smithfield. "What kind of message are we sending to our kids that says if
you do [drugs] we have a van out there that'll give you free needles?"

"It's a difficult message to get across to children," agreed Council
President Leo T. Fontaine Monday night, who said he was opposed to the
needle-exchange concept. He also objected to the practice from a
public-safety standpoint, arguing that, besides posing a threat to
children, city police officers could be put in harm's way by the program's
actions. Patrolmen would run the risk of contracting blood-borne diseases
when patting down criminal suspects pocketing needles.

Councilman Brian R. Blais said that he was not philosophically opposed to
the goal of needle exchange, which is to prevent the spread of disease.
But, he said, operating the distribution van next to a public park is not
appropriate, and indeed, is "somewhat offensive."

Mayor Susan D. Menard said, when the controversy about the distribution van
first came to light, that offering the needle-exchange program at a health
clinic or a hospital would be a far more appropriate setting than next to a
municipal park, a location she deemed not only "absurd," but "dangerous."

Public health advocates argue that needle exchange is a highly effective
way to offer outreach and encourage intravenous drug users to seek
treatment, and that parks offer some amount of confidentiality to addicts
difficult to reach.

They also argue that it is a proven way to protect both addicts and the
wider community from the spread of infectious diseases, such as HIV and
hepatitis C.

Starting last autumn, workers from ENCORE (Education, Needle Exchange,
Counseling, Outreach and Referral) provided clean needles, condoms, and
literature to addicts next to the Woonsocket park for two hours each
Wednesday. The program was suspended in January. The harm-reduction program
is run by the Health Department's AIDS Care Ocean State agency, which has
operated a needle-exchange program in Providence for years. It also
recently started one in Newport.