SHOOTING IN THE DARK

A neighborhood-action group has blocked a needle-exchange program's latest
effort to open up shop in Hollywood, this time at the L.A. Free Clinic.

"They put a lot of energy into defaming needle exchange," said Terry Hair,
executive director of Clean Needles Now, a city-funded program to halt the
spread of hepatitis C and AIDS among people who inject drugs. "It is a very
small number of people impacting the lives of hundreds of people."

For six months, the needle exchange had been looking for a permanent home in
Hollywood. Last year, it lost its lease on Lexington Avenue after a
Hollywood Independent article mentioned it was operating within 600 feet of
a day-care center. The pro-Hollywood secession movement led the campaign at
that time against the needle program. Since then, Clean Needles Now has been
dispensing needles and supplies out of the back of a Ford Explorer, losing a
third of its clients, who are less inclined to use its roadside service for
fear of harassment by cops.

The L.A. Free Clinic on Sunset Boulevard agreed to house the needle exchange
two days a week as long as neighbors supported the project.

They didn't. In March, the Franklin-Hollywood Hills Action Team, a small but
vocal group, was notified by LAPD Officer Maria Gholizadeh that the needle
exchange planned to move into its neighborhood. Fearing the needle exchange
would encourage drug use and prostitution, the group made fliers and
threatened to picket.

"There is a heavy concentration of social services already in the area,"
said group president Fran Reichenbach.

Proponents of the needle program say that Councilman Eric Garcetti did not
fight hard enough for the city project and wondered how an LAPD officer
could so vocally oppose it. Officer Gholizadeh says all she did was alert
the neighborhood group about the program. "I was told by my superiors that
it is a City Council-ordained program and I should stay out of it. I stayed
out of it, and they were able to pressure Garcetti into not putting it into
L.A. Free Clinic," she said.

Garcetti's office denied the allegation that the councilman did not do
enough. "We back the concept of needle exchange," said Josh Kamensky, the
councilman's spokesman. "It wasn't a city decision. It was something between
Clean Needles Now and the L.A. Free Clinic. If L.A. Free Clinic was behind
the needle exchange, we would have continued the discussion."

In fact, the Free Clinic gave in to neighborhood pressure and pulled the
proposal. "They were threatening pickets that would negatively impact our
other patients," said the Free Clinic's Chuck Ellis. "We decided to back
off. We have been there for 10 years. You can't bring our clients into
controversy -- it makes them go back farther into the shadows."