DRUG TREATMENT ADVOCATES URGE USE OF 'HARM REDUCTION' TECHNIQUES AT SEATTLE CONFERENCE

The Fourth National Harm Reduction Conference in Seattle has drawn more
than 1,000 clinicians, public health workers and researchers interested in
harm reduction strategies for fighting drug addiction, such as drug
substitution, needle exchange programs, and compassionate counseling for
addicts.

During Monday's session, panelists slammed the abstinence-only rhetoric
used in most drug treatment programs. "Drug prohibition is what causes the
greatest harm, not drugs," said Patt Denning, director of clinical services
and research with the San Francisco-based Harm Reduction Therapy Center,
which helped organize the conference. Denning believes that regarding drug
users and nonusers as two separate social groups creates an insurmountable
divide that makes effective treatment impossible.

The conference includes speakers and workshops on harm reduction in prisons
and legal barriers to syringe disposal. Speakers are providing step-by-step
instructions on how to use harm reduction techniques. During one panel
discussion, Denning dismissed the suggestion that users must "hit
rock-bottom" before they can be helped, and she criticized current methods
of drug therapy that use punishment to get addicts to kick their habits.
"There is no place for punishment in treatment," she said.

The keynote speaker at the conference, Alonzo Plough, director of the
Seattle-King County Department of Public Health, said local politicians and
law enforcement officials have "come a long way" in their acceptance of
harm reduction techniques. Plough said more resources need to be poured
into harm reduction programs. He suggested making syringes available for
sale at pharmacies and expanding syringe disposal locations. He also called
Seattle's current methadone program "woefully underfunded." Despite an
additional $300,000 allocated in last year's budget to improve the program,
the waiting list remains "unacceptably long," he said.

In King County alone, where 15,000 to 20,000 people inject drugs an average
of three times a day, there are more than 20 million injections each year,
Plough said. The five needle-exchange locations in Seattle, where 2 million
syringes are exchanged annually, are not equipped to handle that type of
volume, he said.