Pubdate: Mon, 12 Mar 2012
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Jesse McKinley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

FAMILIARITY WITH DRUGS HELPS A GROUP SPEAK FOR USERS

SAN FRANCISCO - With a couple of old desks, a beat-up couch and an 
off-white white board, the office space at 149 Turk Street, in this 
city's seedy Tenderloin district, is hardly remarkable. A collection 
of worn detective novels sits on the bookshelf, a couple of American 
flags hang limply from the wall and a coffee machine constantly 
percolates in the back kitchen.

It is the tenants who set 149 Turk apart: a ragtag group of current 
and former drug users who make no apologies about their fondness for 
illegal narcotics, intravenous experiences and the undeniable rush of 
getting high.

"If you pass a drug test," joked Gary West, a member, "you're outta here."

But the group, the San Francisco Drug Users' Union, has more on its 
mind than simply turning on, tuning in and dropping out. The union is 
one of several groups in the United States and Canada that advocate 
for the rights of drug users, following the lead of older European 
drug user organizations. Their goals are often varied, but carry a 
common refrain: to represent the political interests - and practical 
needs - of chronic drug abusers, a sometimes grim agenda that 
includes everything from providing clean needles to finding safe 
places to nod out.

It is a job, members say, that requires firsthand experience to 
connect with a population that is often wary of law enforcement and 
social service agencies.

"People don't trust them," said Isaac Jackson, who helped found the 
group and is, with Mr. West, one of two so-called peer organizers. 
"So someone being a drug user here is somewhat desirable, because who 
knows best about drugs than those that use them?"

The group says they are not promoting illegal drug use, just 
confronting the reality that many people use. Still, such openness 
can make their work difficult, as can their name, Mr. Jackson said.

"People think it's a joke," he said. "They think of union as a kind 
of trade union. They don't understand that we're using 'union' in the 
sense of a consumer union. And we're consumers of drug policies, 
we're consumers of rehab, we're consumers of drugs."

Yet with attitudes about drugs and the drug war seemingly evolving in 
many areas - including ballot measures this fall to legalize 
marijuana in Washington State and Colorado - drug advocacy groups 
have had some recent successes. In New York, the group Voices of 
Community Activists and Leaders (or Vocal), a membership group of 
people with AIDS, drug users and former prisoners, has helped pass a 
pair of bills involving syringe access and protections for users who 
call in overdoses to 911.

In San Francisco, the drug union received its first grant in 2009, 
Mr. Jackson said, and got more help in December 2010 from the city's 
Hepatitis C Task Force, which advocated for a pilot "supervised 
injection facility" for intravenous drug users because they often 
contract hepatitis by using dirty needles. No such facility exists in 
the United States - a so-called safe injection site in Vancouver, 
British Columbia, has been considered a success there - and it has 
become a central goal of the San Francisco union.

Advocates for such a site say it would not only help prevent new 
hepatitis and AIDS infections but could also provide a contact point 
for other health services, including rehabilitation, for addicts who 
are often loath to seek help.

And in one of the more liberal cities in the nation, the idea of a 
safe injection site has won some support, including from several 
mayoral candidates last fall like John Avalos, a leader of the 
progressive bloc of the city's all-Democratic Board of Supervisors. 
Laura Thomas, the interim California director for the Drug Policy 
Alliance, a drug reform organization in New York that helps finance 
the union, said that San Francisco had a history of "compassionate 
response" to drug users, and that an injection site was not so far-fetched.

"I have a small bet with one of my co-workers as to who is going to 
get there first, New York or San Francisco," Ms. Thomas said. 
"Certainly I want San Francisco to be the first."

Still, such a plan faces political and economic challenges, said 
Alice Gleghorn, the county alcohol and drug administrator, who 
oversees the city's drug abuse prevention and treatment programs and 
opposes the idea of an injection site. "We do have trouble even in 
San Francisco finding locations for new substance abuse programs," 
Ms. Gleghorn said. "Can you imagine what kind of Nimbyism would come 
about if someone were to try to put a safe injection site somewhere?"

Mayor Ed Lee also opposes the idea, saying that the city has ample 
tools for attacking the problem of intravenous drug use, including 
syringe exchanges, said Christine Falvey, a spokeswoman for the mayor.

Mr. Jackson, 56, admits to using methamphetamine - his drug of 
choice, one he said was "love at first sight" - despite a personal 
history that would probably argue against it.

Tall and gangly, with a drifting eye, Mr. Jackson speaks with a 
mumble and a dry sense of humor about losing most of the perks of a 
normal life - car, career, apartment - to meth, something he feels 
might have been avoided had a group like his been around at the time.

"If there was more information out there, I could have known how to 
stay safe," Mr. Jackson said.

The group, whose activities never include asking anyone to stop doing 
drugs, holds regular meetings at the Turk Street space, in an area 
where drug sales are common. People wander in and out, though Mr. 
Jackson and Mr. West are constant presences.

Mr. West, 46, says he came to San Francisco two years ago from his 
home in Ishpeming, Mich., in the state's Upper Peninsula, and was 
attracted initially to the union by the promise of free pizza. "It 
was an inside joke for me at the time," he said. "My dad would be so 
proud of me: 'I'm a drug user, but I finally joined a union!' "

But he found himself agreeing with much of what Mr. Jackson was 
talking about. "And I need something to fill in my time as well," Mr. 
West said. "Living on the street you get awful bored."

He is still homeless - "I have a little camp in a secret locale" - 
but now draws a small salary from the union, as does Mr. Jackson. It 
is not much, the men say, but enough to keep them out of soup kitchens.

But both men say their experiences with a range of drugs are 
indispensible in helping their members.

"It helps to know what they are doing and what they're going through 
while they're high," Mr. West said. "If they are tweaking, we got to 
figure out some way of how to tie them down. If they're doing heroin 
or something like that, that's easy, just turn on the TV, and that'll 
keep them occupied."

At a meeting in late February devoted to a discussion of current 
events, one such member had nodded out in a chair. But still the 
conversation continued, touching on the presidential campaign - "Ron 
Paul would be good for us, for druggies," quipped Mr. Jackson - and 
plans for an April exhibit at the Turk Street space outlining 
potential plans for the injection site.

And while those plans may be far from fruition, Mr. Jackson says that 
he is as committed to it as he is to his belief that drug users are 
people, too.

"I think people feel that drug users are powerless or are impossible 
to work with," he said. "That we can't get it together. But I don't 
think that's true."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom