Pubdate: Wed, 15 Apr 2009
Source: London Free Press (CN ON)
Copyright: 2009 The London Free Press
Contact: http://www.lfpress.com/cgi-bin/comments.cgi?c=letters_editor
Website: http://www.lfpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/243
Author: Ian Gillespie
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

NEEDLE DROP BOX PRICKLY ISSUE

Simcoe Street Residents Are Concerned About A Clean Needle Program

Melanie Bradley is sick and tired of finding needles and crack pipes 
in and around her backyard.

"Just yesterday, there was a bag with two needles, a spoon and some 
residue on my patio," she says. "The problem is getting worse."

Bradley says she's lived on Simcoe Street for 14 years.

"It's never been a great area," she admits. "But it was mostly 
harmless old drunks."

But Bradley, who has four teenage children, insists things have 
deteriorated since the city set up a bin for used syringes beside her 
house, and the London Harm Reduction Coalition -- an agency that 
supports and educates addicts -- set up an office in the London 
public housing complex at 241 Simcoe St., which is beside her house.

As part of its work, the coalition distributes sterile syringes to drug users.

"They walk around the neighbourhood with a backpack full of clean 
needles and hand them out," says Bradley. "So they're really just 
putting more (needles) out on the street."

In Bradley's view, handing out needles is helping the addicts do 
drugs -- not helping them stop.

Jim Watkin disagrees. As executive director of the London Harm 
Reduction Coalition, he's one of the front-line workers who regularly 
pounds the pavement in that neighbourhood, collecting old needles, 
handing out new ones and talking to addicts.

"Our experience is that the number of needles that are being 
discarded in that area has reduced drastically (since the bin was 
installed late last year)," says Watkin. "Last summer, before we got 
there, we'd pick up hundreds of needles off the 241 (Simcoe St.) 
property, maybe once a week. That's not happening now."

The coalition is one of more than a dozen local agencies working 
together under the umbrella of London Cares, which was officially 
launched six months ago and is aimed at helping homeless and 
street-based individuals.

Stephen Giustizia, who works with the city's social and community 
support services division, helps oversee London Cares. He says the 
public housing complex at 241 Simcoe St. has long had "a high drug 
presence," and that's exactly why the needle bin and the coalition are there.

And he disputes the contention that handing out clean needles 
attracts more addicts or leads to more drug use.

"Studies have shown that providing a needle doesn't make someone 
inject more," says Giustizia.

He insists -- and I tend to agree -- that providing clean needles and 
safely disposing old ones helps protect the drug users and their neighbours.

But he says he'll meet with Bradley. And he promises to have the bin 
moved farther from her house.

"But this isn't about liking needle bins," he adds. "The needles 
aren't there because of London Cares. The needles are there because 
we have an injection-drug use issue that's escalating in this city."

He's probably right about London's drug woes. And he's probably right 
about how to treat it.

But I'm glad I don't live next door to it.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom