NEEDLE PROGRAM SEEKS BOARD OK

SPRINGFIELD - A proposal to put a needle exchange program here will get one
more fine-tuning Wednesday before the City Council votes on the
controversial measure July 18.

The council Planning and Economic Development Committee will discuss needle
exchange at 4:45 p.m. at City Hall in City Council Chambers. In a needle
exchange program, intravenous drug users get one clean needle for each
used, or dirty, needle they submit.

Supporters say such an exchange can get infected needles off the streets
and prevent the spread of such blood-borne diseases as AIDS and hepatitis C
among users prone to sharing needles.

"All the research and all the studies and all the information and when you
really think about it, (needle exchange) saves lives. It reduces the spread
of HIV. It's very important," said Councilor Bud L. Williams, who proposed
the measure in April 2004.

Not so, say needle-exchange opponents, who include the majority of the
nine-member council and Mayor Charles V. Ryan.

"We put it on the ballot and people voted against it," said Karen Powell,
coordinator of Citizens Against Needle Exchange here. In 1998, more than 60
percent of voters rejected needle exchange in a nonbinding ballot question.

"Giving needles to drug addicts just doesn't make any sense and it's not
the way to treat drug addiction. How many times are they going to bring
this up?" Powell said.

Opponents also say the city would be contradicting itself by adopting such
a program while police battle drug abuse.

Williams said he remains hopeful despite the opposition to making
Springfield the state's fifth community to adopt a needle exchange program.
Northampton, Boston, Cambridge and Provincetown have needle exchange
facilities. Like those, Springfield's would be state-funded. In April,
Westport's Board of Selectmen accepted a needle exchange program but
rescinded the vote three days later after public pressure. Among the
features included in the proposal that Williams hopes will sway skeptics is
a provision that would let the City Council review the program after a
year. The exchange in the proposal the City Council is considering would be
mobile. A van would be stationed, at least initially, only in the city's
North End, Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-noon.

As of Jan. 1, this city of 152,082 had 905 people who either had HIV, the
virus that causes AIDS, or AIDS. Of the total, 43 percent came from
intravenous drug use compared with a 30 percent average statewide of such
cases stemming from needle use, said Helen R. Caulton-Harris, director of
the city's Health and Human Services Department.

Caulton-Harris worked on the needle exchange proposal with Tapestry Health,
a private, nonprofit human service agency, the city Law Department and city
councilors.

"I am hopeful that the City Council will see the value of saving lives and
will implement a needle exchange program in the city of Springfield,"
Caulton-Harris said.