A NEED FOR NEEDLES

Addicts Flood State's Four Exchange Programs

The four needle-exchange programs in the state are being flooded by
out-of-town addicts who sometimes travel miles for potentially
life-saving clean needles, which can stave off HIV and hepatitis, a
Herald review has found.

Law enforcement officials in three of the four municipalities that
permit needle swaps say they are not worried about the junkie
influxes. But because no cities or towns beyond Boston, Cambridge,
Provincetown and Northampton likely will approve such a program,
clean needles remain hard to come by in Massachusetts.

"All these people in the suburbs love to have these needle programs
in Cambridge and Boston, but they don't want it in their city," said
Cambridge police spokesman Frank Pasquarello.

Advocates say a bill making clean needles available through
pharmacies - which is allowed in 47 states - may be the last
realistic way to reach Bay State addicts who otherwise would risk
disease by reusing tainted hypodermics.

The so-called pharmacy access bill "has to pass or we'll file it
again," said Denise McWilliams, director of public policy for the
AIDS Action Committee.

Of the nearly 18,000 people enrolled in the state's four needle
programs, about 12,500 come from outside the four municipalities
where needles are distributed lawfully. The numbers don't show how
many drug addicts use dirty needles because they don't have easy
access to needle exchanges.

"Many people who are using drugs out there, they don't leave the
corner they're on," said Gary Langis, HIV program manager at CAB
Health & Recovery Services in Lynn and a longtime activist who has
been arrested for running underground needle exchanges. "They are not
going to go to East Boston from 4 to 6 on Tuesday night to get clean needles."

Attempts to establish needle-exchange programs in Lynn, Worcester,
Sprin ield, Holyoke and Westport have failed since the state gave
local communities the right to decide whether to hand out syringes in
the 1990s.

House lawmakers last November approved the bill that would allow
pharmacies to sell hypodermic needles to anyone older than 18.

The bill is vehemently opposed by anti-needle-exchange activists who
scoff at evidence that the sale of clean needles can reduce disease
transmission. They also argue needle exchanges encourage drug use and
increase crime.

"It's absolutely asinine from my point of view that they would want
to put more needles on the street," said Lea Polleria Cox, the Bay
State delegate for Drug Watch International.

Northampton police Chief Russell Sienkiewicz, who supports the city's
needle-exchange program, opposes selling needles in drug stores. He
fears drug store sales would flood the streets with dirty needles and
keep addicts from the health care that needle-exchange programs provide.

"There will be a huge impetus for them not to discard dirty needles,"
Sienkiewicz said.