CITY URGED TO WITHDRAW FLIER ON 'SAFER' HEROIN USE THAT SOME SEE AS
HOW-TO GUIDE

If you are going to do drugs, do it right, because even drug addicts
deserve to have their lives protected.

That was the message New York City health officials said they were
trying to convey in a pamphlet on "tips for safer use" of heroin that
the city financed and distributed and that has raised the hackles of
public officials, including the city's special narcotics prosecutor,
over the last few days.

City health officials say the 17-page brochure, which has been in
circulation since June 2007, simply recognizes that, realistically,
it is impossible to stop every intravenous drug user. It offers "10
Tips for Safer Use" of heroin, like injecting drugs with someone else
in case something goes wrong and "shoot correctly to avoid infection
and collapsed veins."

But skeptics, including City Councilman Peter F. Vallone Jr., a
Queens Democrat, and Bridget G. Brennan, the special narcotics
prosecutor, say the brochure is a how-to manual for beginning drug
users that -- through tips like "warm up your body (jump up and down)
to show your veins" -- makes drug use seem normal. They said it was
misguided public policy and called on the city to withdraw it.

Mr. Vallone, chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, said
on Tuesday that the pamphlet, whose existence was reported in The New
York Post this week, offered little of value to experienced users and
could encourage novices to take up heroin use by showing them how to do it.

"You're spending taxpayer money and getting a how-to guide for
first-time users," he said. The city has spent about $32,000 to print
and distribute 70,000 copies of the flier, health officials said.

Ms. Brennan said Tuesday that she saw a legitimate public purpose in
other policies directed at intravenous drug users, like needle
exchanges to prevent drug users from spreading H.I.V. and other
infections through contaminated needles. But she said that telling
drug users to do things like wash their hands was silly.

"I think needle exchange, if it's managed well and it's targeted and
it's thoughtfully administered, I think that makes a lot of sense,
but this doesn't fall into that category," Ms. Brennan said.

She said that the brochure suggested there was a safe way to inject
heroin. "Anytime you intravenously inject drugs you're taking your
life into your hands, no matter how many times you wash your hands or
use alcohol," Ms. Brennan said. "It's a poison. And you don't know
what the drug is cut with. When I looked at the brochure, it
suggested a normalization."

Mr. Vallone said he did not blame the city's health commissioner, Dr.
Thomas A. Farley, for the pamphlet, which was distributed long before
Dr. Farley took office in June, but he said he planned to meet with
the commissioner on Wednesday and would ask him to withdraw the pamphlet.

Mr. Vallone objected to safety tips like "drop the cotton directly
into the cooker. Don't touch it!" To him, he said, that sounded like
"you're going to prevent them from getting a boo-boo."

He also cited the tip about jumping up and down. "That's a helpful
hint, not advice to prevent any disease," Mr. Vallone said.

Health officials adamantly denied that the pamphlet could be
construed as a how-to manual.

"Absolutely not," Dr. Adam Karpati, executive deputy commissioner for
the health department's division of mental hygiene, said on Tuesday.

Tips like the one about warming up veins, he said, were to protect
users from repeated injections, which could lead to bloodstream and
skin-borne infections.

City health officials said the brochure was aimed at making
intravenous drug use "safer," not "safe." He noted that the first
page of the leaflet urges users to "get help and support to stop
using drugs" and that the pamphlet offers 24-hour hotline numbers for
them to call. He said the city was trying to prevent overdoses and
health risks, like H.I.V. and hepatitis, which are spread by dirty needles.

More than 600 New Yorkers die of accidental drug overdoses every
year, and one-third of people with H.I.V. in the United States were
infected through intravenous drug use, the health department said.

"Our primary message, as it is in all our initiatives, is to help
people stop using drugs and to provide them with information on how
to quit," Dr. Karpati said. But he said that health officials
recognized that quitting was not a realistic expectation for all drug users.