Pubdate: Fri, 02 Feb 2001
Source: Salt Lake City Weekly (UT)
Copyright: 2001 Copperfield Publishing
Section: City Beat
Contact:  http://www.slweekly.com/
Author Ben Fulton
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/hr.htm (Harm Reduction)

JUST SAY NO VS. JUST SAY KNOW

Are you looking forward to an evening of smoking methamphetamine? Cover the 
mouthpiece of your pipe with tape or rubber to keep cuts and burns at bay. 
Looking for a way to take the edge off that post-cocaine crash? Swallow a 
small amount of Valium.

All this advice and much, much more awaits any curious visitor to the Salt 
Lake City office of The Intermountain Harm Reduction Project. An office 
visit isn't altogether necessary, though. The group's literature is also 
available at select coffee shops, vintage clothing stores, homeless 
shelters, bars and head shops. It's all part of the organization's 
ambitious mission to make risky behavior—the project prefers the words 
"marginalized behavior"—safer for people who just can't shake drug habits 
or prostitution.

It also marks a crucial, and sometimes controversial, shift in the field of 
drug policy and education. Past programs such as D.A.R.E. drummed 
abstinence and fear into anyone with questions about illegal drugs. The 
Intermountain Harm Reduction Project, now passing its second year in Utah's 
capital, also sends out warnings about the risks of drugs. At the same 
time, however, its five staff members dispense rational, non-dramatic 
advice to anyone who hasn 't successfully kicked the habit, be it speed, 
heroine, cocaine or the popular rave drugs ecstasy, LSD and ketamine. 
Covering the full range of all that's risky and racy, the project also has 
loads of free condoms for prostitutes, plus tips on the best way to conduct 
a safe "trick."

Drug addicts and prostitutes are people, too, after all. "We do everything 
we can to get people off drugs or off the streets," said Luciano Colonna, 
The Intermountain Harm Reduction Project's executive director. "But what if 
treatment and all the advice in the world doesn't work? What happens then? 
Do we throw away the person? Or do you work to keep people as safe from 
harm as possible? Our community is made up of these people. By helping 
these people we help our community. Drugs are everywhere and we need to 
confront this problem in ways that are effective."

So, hitting the streets, the project distributes bleach kits to drug 
injectors in hopes of stemming the spread of HIV and hepatitis. Addicts are 
admonished to test a small amount of drug from a new supplier. One pamphlet 
alone gives drug users all the information they'd need to avoid, or if 
necessary deal with, an overdose.

The project has plenty of professional support. Both the American Medical 
Association and the National Centers for Disease Control endorse its 
methods. Locally, individuals from Utah Red Cross, the Utah State Health 
Department, the Salt Lake County Division of Substance Abuse, the Salt Lake 
Valley Health Department, Utah AIDS Foundation and Wasatch Homeless Health 
Care collaborate in the project's aims. The Intermountain Harm Reduction 
Project also racks up funding from county, state and federal sources. Both 
the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Health and Human Services chip in, 
Colonna said.

For more traditional commanders in America's "War on Drugs," there's a lot 
not to like about the harm reduction approach. Unsurprisingly, they're 
taken aback by the method's casual approach. They also point out that harm 
reduction projects nationwide receive funding from the Lindesmith Center, 
which in turn gets some of its funding from George Soros' Open Society 
Institute. Soros, a U.S. business mogul and multimillionaire, has been 
widely hissed and booed as "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."

Kathy Stewart, a D.A.R.E. officer of seven years who also mentors police 
officers at the Lehi Police Department, wasn't amused or impressed with 
certain Harm Reduction Coalition pamphlets. "I cannot believe it. I'm 
totally amazed that people put that out," she said. "It certainly makes me 
glad that I'm in the prevention end of drug education. In particular, I was 
amazed at some of the statements. It's very misleading when they talk about 
cocaine increasing stamina and alertness. It's almost as if they're saying 
there's not a lot of risk involved."

Stewart also doubts that most drug users would even follow many of the 
safety tips these pamphlets expound. Mostly, she's aghast that anyone would 
suggest proper, safe or correct ways to administer illegal drugs. Matched 
with Mayor Rocky Anderson's decision to nix the D.A.R.E. program in Salt 
Lake City, pamphlets such as these should alarm anyone worried that drug 
education is headed in the wrong direction.

"I've never seen anyone use drugs correctly. If a drug addict wants a fix, 
they're going to take any tainted syringe or drug just to get that fix back 
in their body," Stewart said. "We've got to teach people and kids that 
there 's more to life. If you teach them that, you don't have to teach them 
how to use drugs safely."

Colonna said he understands those kinds of concerns. But sometimes reality 
based education works better than fear and judgment. Providing drug users 
with useful information that may protect their health and well-being is 
really no different than telling drivers to fasten their seatbelts, or 
warning drinkers about the dangers of driving while intoxicated. Plus, 
Colonna points out that the pamphlets are written by drug users for other 
drug users. They are not meant for schoolchildren. The pamphlets simply try 
to keep drug users as healthy as possible until they achieve abstinence. 
Colonna disputes anyone arguing that drug addicts don't care about their 
health.

"Drug users and alcoholics show up at meetings every day trying to get 
sober. In most cases, they show up voluntarily," he said. "To say that 
these people have a total disregard for their health disregards the fact 
that most people want to get clean and return quality to their lives."

Rich Mrazik, a care coordinator at the Fourth Street Clinic for homeless 
people, said he's seen firsthand the benefit of harm reduction pamphlets 
such as "H Is for Heroin," "S Is for Speed" and "C Is for Cocaine."

"A lot of users respond well to learning about the dangers of these 
substances without a message full of moral overtones," Mrazik said. "But 
supervisors at overflow shelters were sometimes less than thrilled that we 
were handing out bleach kits. They thought it would somehow make it easier 
for people to inject."

At the end of the day, however, effective drug policy is what matters most. 
Colonna won't dismiss the D.A.R.E. anti-drug program out of hand. His 
daughter enrolled in it and learned a lot, he said. But he's of the same 
mind as Salt Lake City's mayor. "From the literature I've seen, it's not 
effective in keeping kids away from drugs," Colonna said. "Obviously 
abstinence would be the best way to go. But the reality is that a 
significant number of people don't get off of drugs. We're here for them. 
My job is to engage them so that they don't get hepatitis or AIDS, 
overdose, or go to jail. We cannot marginalize these people so completely 
that we lose them."
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