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PROJECT USES UNIQUE APPROACH TO HELP METH ADDICTS

The intense rush from a methamphetamine high can last up to 12 hours, but when users fall from the high, stomach cramps, anxiety, convulsions and insomnia are there to catch them.

In reality, there must be something to using methamphetamines or people wouldn't do it.  Most addicts don't fit the mental picture of a runaway teenager sitting in an alley, said Luciano Colonna, The Harm Reduction Program executive director on Monday to 50 Weber State University students.

The drug is so inexpensive and easy to create, it has become the drug of choice for blue-collar workers, soccer moms and homosexuals, Colonna said.  In the year 2000, 3,448 addicts preferred methamphetamines -- a total that reached 5,486 in 2004.

Colonna believes "harm reduction" is a better way to curtail the effects of drug use.  A "cold-turkey" approach to quitting drugs is often discouraging and ineffective, while a harm-reduction approach targets the behavior associated with drug use, rather than the drug use itself, he said.

Colonna, a 48-year-old musician who spent time writing theatrical pieces in New York City, became an advocate for "harm reduction" when a lot of people he knew were dying of AIDS.

"It was pretty tragic, it was a horrible, long death," Colonna said, "So I took a part-time job as an HIV counselor."

Colonna soon found himself helping with a needle exchange program in Massachusetts.  Needle exchange programs are a method of harm reduction; providing clean drug paraphernalia to addicts who might otherwise spread disease when sharing dirty needles.  Soon, Colonna met Mark Bigler, WSU College of Social and Behavioral Sciences dean, who also heads the board of directors for the Harm Reduction Project.  Colonna became executive director of the project.

According to Bigler, harm reduction principles encourage incremental changes toward safer behavior.

"Our country has been saying: 'Just say no,' and 'Fight the war on drugs,' and that approach has been an abysmal failure," Bigler said.  "Eliminating the risky behaviors associated with meth use is a better start to solving the problem."

Bigler said meth use is beginning to take hold in the homosexual community.

"Using the drug gives them highly increased pleasure," Bigler said.  "One infected partner injects the other and uses the same needle on himself."

Others who then become infected reuse the needles.  The Harm Reduction Project, which has an office in Salt Lake City, distributes condoms to promote safe sex, and seeks to educate people on the danger of dirty needles.  It is illegal in Utah to distribute clean needles to drug addicts.

While state laws prosecute a person possessing drug paraphernalia, the harm reduction project would seek to educate a person on the importance of using safe needles.

Bigler said he has received limited criticism because of his approach.  Some have called it a "soft approach," or even a way of enabling addicts' habits.

"People think we are trying to facilitate drug use," Bigler said.  "We aren't saying we shouldn't have laws or regulations for drug use.  But the policies and practices that seek to eliminate risk altogether are generally unrealistic and set individuals up for failure.  It becomes very self-reinforcing.  'I can't do that.' Their failure to stop makes them feel weak, it's a cycle."

Colonna said the Harm Reduction Project approaches the biggest problems first, and works toward the ultimate harm reducer: abstinence from drugs.

The Harm Reduction Project has a clinic at 155 S.  300 W.  #101, Salt Lake City, where addicts can receive counseling and assistance.  The clinic also provides free HIV testing on the first and third Thursdays each month.