In Rebuttal

MISSING THE POINT

The Needle Exchange Program Must Conform To Legal Requirements

In response to the Post-Gazette editorial "Pointless Criticism: The
County's Needle Exchange Program Works: (April 4).

It is a bit puzzling that after three weeks of thought the
Post-Gazette editorial board would miss the main point of the needle
exchange program inquiry. The bottom line is that the way the
program evolved and is operating may not be in the best manner and I
believe may not be set up legally. This is something an elected
official ought not to ignore.

The point of your editorial seemed to concentrate on what "harm" the
program is doing. The "harm" is that the enactment and operation of
the program does not follow county laws (or for that matter possibly
state law). Comparing the program with Philadelphia's does not make
the laws of our county become more compliant and presupposes that the
Philadelphia program is compliant and is in itself a fairly
"pointless" endeavor because Philadelphia is governed by a completely
different home rule charter.

In fact, our new home rule government evolved before the initial was
made on the needle exchange program, yet the Health Board continued
as if there were no reason to follow the county charter nor recognize
the legislative branch as prescribed in the charter.

Some specifics to this point: An ordinance is needed to enact any
operational activity in the county. Only County Council can pass
ordinances. As a health comparison, the anti-idling bus emission
legislation, which County Council passed in 2004, would be an
example. A second ordinance is needed for conditional use of land,
buildings or real property as prescribed in the home rule charter.

State law is clear that needles are classified as drug paraphernalia,
but the only mechanism that the Drug and Cosmetic Act specifies for
creating an exemption to this classification is by the state
secretary of health, not local jurisdictions. Therefore your
assertion that the program from a state perspective is legal may very
well be incorrect. Indeed, even Temple University's Beasley School of
Law, which is the source of the only legal justification for the
program offered by Prevention Point Pittsburgh or the county Health
Department to council thus far, currently classifies the legal
foundation for the Pittsburgh syringe exchange program as "debatable."

Moreover, an emergency declaration should not last four years. Some
measure of law and enactment of a law should eventually have governed
this program. At the end of the day, this could still be an option.

The merits of the program by way of effectiveness are hard to
understand. Is the program working? What can make it better? How
is the data collected? What has been benchmarked? What guidelines
have been set up? What are the best practices? How man addicts have
entered a rehab program? Should a portion of the money be advocated
for rehab services and detoxification? How can any value really be
determined if there is neither understanding nor data evidence?
National data is to at least some extent compelling and appropriate
but, after four years, to expect some local information should not be
out of the norm.

I ran for this position with the hopes of making county government
more open, accessible and honest. These days (and jokes) of the
deals in cigar-filled backrooms must no longer be part of the culture
of county government. Yet your editorial endorses this very concept.
Should not an open process exist as to public policy and what is
permissible? Whether the group is private matters little; the public
domain is giving it the legal justification to exist and a place to
conduct business.

I prefer to take the approach as offered by your columnist Ruth Ann
Daley in her well-balanced column of April 3 concerning this issue in
regard to the public's role: "We need an open, well-informed debate
to find the right answer."

Vince Gastgeb

Allegheny County Council, District 5