CITY UNHAPPY WITH NEEDLE EXCHANGE SITE

The Baltimore City Health Department is considering asking the
Hampden Community Council for a new site for a needle exchange
program for users of intravenous drugs, primarily heroin.

Exchange program director Lamont Coger said the current site in the
3800 block of Buena Vista Avenue has been used infrequently by drug
users since the site was approved by the community council last
November after two months of debate.

Cogersaid he doesn't have a specific area in mind for a new site, but
would like it to be closer to Falls Road, where he thinks the program
would be better received by intravenous drug addicts.

Initially, health officials wanted a site on Falls Road near the
Jones Falls Expressway off ramp. But that proposal was rejected by
community council members in October.

They said it was too close to the Roosevelt Recreation Center and
Robert Poole Middle School on 36th Street.

The council also rejected alternative sites in the 3200 block of
Falls Road, the 3500 block of Clipper Mill Road and the corner of
Keswick Road and Wyman Park Drive. But 35 of 36 voting council
members voted for the Buena Vista site.

Hampden Community Council president Genny Dill said this week health
officials are more than welcome to approach the council about finding
a new site.

"There are some other location alternatives," Dill said.

Dill said she had not yet been approached by Coger or other program
representatives about changing the site.

The Hampden program is part of a 12-year-old citywide needle exchange
program run by Baltimore Substance Abuse Inc. on behalf of the health
department.

The program's goal is to give addicts clean needles, condoms and
counseling in exchange for dirty needles as a way to prevent the
spread of HIV and AIDS through intravenous drug use.

Health officials decided Hampden needed a site after seeing a rise in
911 calls about opiate-related overdoses in 2006.

But Dill, a supporter of the program's presence in Hampden, said the
city is missing the mark with the needle exchange.

The biggest problem in the neighborhood is related to people taking
oxycodone pills, not intravenous drug use, Dill said.

And the neighborhood would be better served by a program designed to
get addicts into rehabilitation quickly, Dill said.