CONTROVERSY ON SYRINGE EXCHANGE UNLIKELY TO WANE

Albuquerque Police Department Capt. Gene Halliburton faced the angry Nob
Hill Neighborhood Association gathering, armed with crime statistics and
years of experience dealing with heroin addicts.

"I'm sort of caught in the middle of this situation," Halliburton told the
group Nov. 8, knowing most of the people there were fighting to get a
needle exchange program driven out of their area.

"I support the concept of needle exchange," Halliburton said, referring to
research that shows it prevents the spread of deadly diseases like AIDS and
hepatitis C, and prevents costly hits to an already strained health care
system.

But Halliburton also showed the parents, neighbors and business owners some
alarming numbers.

"While crime rates go down in other areas, they go up in Nob Hill and the
University Heights Association," Halliburton said. His report said overall
crime is up by more than 20 percent in trendy Nob Hill compared with last year.

The City Council heard many of the same complaints from neighborhood
residents and businesses Monday that Halliburton heard at the meeting
earlier this month: gangs, drug dealers, drug addicts and prostitutes
roaming the area, disturbing the residents and leaving the debris of drug
addiction scattered everywhere, with the complaints centered on the Harm
Reduction Center at 4120 Silver Ave. S.E.

The council voted Monday night to effectively shut down the center by
requiring that needle clinics move away from residential areas.

The debate over needle exchange may change locales, but it almost certainly
will not go away.

Even a city councilor who voted to tighten restrictions on where needle
exchange centers can be located acknowledged Monday's 9-0 vote might merely
change the geography - not end the controversy - over the facilities. "I
wonder if we're not just taking the problem and moving it from one part of
the city to a different part," said outgoing City Councilor Alan Armijo,
who nevertheless voted for the restrictions.

The Harm Reduction Center opened about 18 months ago under the management
of the nonprofit Health Care for the Homeless with funding by the state
Department of Health.

It's on the same block as a methadone clinic, which distributes that drug
to addicts in an attempt to wean them from heroin.

Neighbors in the area say the Harm Reduction Center attracted heroin
dealers looking for a sure customer base around the center.

"How do they get their money for their drugs?" resident Judy Pratt said.
"They break into our houses and they break into our cars. All . . . the . .
. time."

Around the city, six organizations give out clean needles and other
services to addicts through a $300,000 state grant, said Dr. Bruce Trigg,
who manages a state Department of Health Clinic in the University Area.

A loss of the clinics would mean disastrous consequences in the fight to
contain HIV and hepatitis C - incurable diseases often spread by dirty
heroin needles, health workers say.

"The state Health Department would like to have many sites all over the
city so that people don't congregate at one place," Trigg said in an
interview. "None of the other places has ever had a complaint from anyone
anywhere."

Maureen Rule, clinical adviser at the Harm Reduction Center, explained how
the center works: Addicts come into the center for the first time and are
given a starter pack of 30 clean syringes for injecting heroin. For
subsequent visits, addicts must bring used needles into the center in order
to get new ones.

Trigg said the centers also hand out sterile "cookers" - a device that
helps distill heroin - plus water, tourniquets and referrals for drug
rehabilitation services.

"Syringe exchange is probably 25 percent of what we do there," Rule said.
The drug users, many of whom are homeless, also can do their laundry and
take a shower there.

The theory is that drug addiction and homelessness are something that must
be dealt with to prevent them from becoming worse.

"We call it the intersection of public health and human rights," Trigg
said. "We treat people from respect."

At the Nov. 8 meeting at Highland High School, an assistant principal, a
parent group representative, a school police officer and a basketball coach
came with this message: Get this stuff away from our more than 2,000
students. Highland students are being hassled by users, and they're finding
needles on campus when they clean the grounds, school Resource Officer
Patricio Ruiloba said.

"I need to protect my kids there," he said.

Rule countered she, too, wants to protect kids - especially from AIDS and
from life on the streets.

The Nob Hill meeting concluded like a mirror image of the needle exchange
program itself: no clear answers, few thoughts of compromise, plenty of
passion and an outlook of long-term controversy.

And a lot of people, like Halliburton, who feel caught in the middle.