Emergency Status Urged for Needle Exchanges

The Los Angeles riots, the Northridge earthquake, last fall’s wildfires--each of them prompted city officials to declare a local state of emergency. If Hollywood Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg has her way, the AIDS epidemic will prompt the same response.

Concerned about police citations issued in recent months to activists who are distributing clean needles to drug users on Hollywood streets, Goldberg on Friday urged Mayor Richard Riordan to declare a local public health emergency.

The action is designed to discourage the LAPD from disrupting the needle exchanges, which are against state law but occur throughout the city. Authorities have long given tacit approval to the exchanges because AIDS is commonly transmitted by dirty needles.

“Many, many more people will die from this emergency than died during the earthquake or the civil unrest,” Goldberg said. “Most of those states of emergency were declared to protect property. This is really designed to protect life.”

Declaring a state of emergency would not legalize the needle exchanges but officials say it would send a message that City Hall supports such efforts and would put needle exchanges toward the bottom of the Police Department’s list of priorities.

A top official for the LAPD said the state of emergency would not change their policy. “It is already at a low priority,” Assistant Police Chief Bernard Parks said. He added that the LAPD will still respond, however, to the most serious complaints.

San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and several Northern California counties have used similar declarations to allow needle exchanges without disruption by police.

If the City Council approves Goldberg’s motion next week, it would be up to Riordan, who has supported needle distributions in the past, to issue the declaration.

According to city law, a local emergency applies to “any occurrence which by reason of its magnitude is or is likely to become beyond the control of the normal services, personnel, equipment and facilities of the regularly constituted branches and departments of the city government.”

There have been numerous states of emergency declared in recent years, most of them tied to Mother Nature. Besides the big three disasters above, the winter storms in 1992 and 1993 prompted emergency declarations, as did the Big Bear-Landers earthquakes in 1992 and the Sierra Madre earthquake in 1991.

The target of this declaration is the LAPD.

After receiving sporadic complaints from critics in recent months, police have issued five citations to the activists who gathered every Wednesday night at a Hollywood street corner to exchange clean needles for used ones. All those cited have been working with Clean Needles Now, which has distributed needles for more than two years on Los Angeles streets.

The city attorney’s office says it is reviewing the cases but has not filed charges in any of them.

The Hollywood activists say they are trying to reduce the spread of AIDS by handing out fresh needles to those who might otherwise risk contracting HIV by using dirty ones.

The critics, led by real estate developer Jerry Schneiderman, argue that street corner needle exchanges attract vagrants.

“We don’t want Hollywood to become the hub of distribution for the entire city so drug addicts flock here,” he said. “You should see the creeps and characters who show up.”

In Hollywood, the exchange site was next door to an elementary school and a Catholic church until sponsors bowed to criticism and recently moved to an alley behind a bar.

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Doris Dent, principal of Selma Avenue Elementary School, had no objections to the location, saying that drug use was a fact of life in the neighborhood and that the distributions occurred well after the students had gone home.

“Because of the timing of it, it has never caused a problem for us as a school,” she said. “I don’t personally see drug pushers in front of the school and they have not, to my knowledge, bothered any schoolchildren.”

But the receptionist at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, Rachel Rodney, complained of drug users traipsing through the church parking lot about the time that evening services were letting out.

“I’m very glad it’s moved,” she said. “The program is probably good, but why can’t they do it at a health clinic and not in the street?”

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There are more than half a dozen needle distribution sites in other parts of the city, including South Park and Skid Row, and two sites are planned soon for the San Fernando Valley, city officials say.

Most of the locations are kept secret to avoid rousing controversy and scaring away drug users who gather there.

Councilwoman Rita Walters, who represents parts of Downtown and South-Central, supports the distribution sites in her district. She joined Councilmen Mark Ridley-Thomas, Richard Alarcon and Mike Hernandez in co-sponsoring Goldberg’s motion.

“There is an awful lot of drug use in abandoned buildings and homes and the outright selling of it on street corners,” Walters said. “The drug users are there already. These programs are just trying to control the spread of AIDS.”

For two years, Gov. Pete Wilson has vetoed legislation that would have made needle distribution legal. In March, 1993, San Francisco Mayor Frank Jordan defied Wilson and declared a public health emergency so the city could provide funds for the needle exchange.

Goldberg’s motion would not legalize the possession of a hypodermic needle--a violation of the state Business and Professional Code--but would direct the police to make citations a low priority. Nor would it provide funding.

“This is in fact a health crisis,” Goldberg said. “We don’t want the police to break any laws but we want them to go as far as they can within the law to permit this. This ought to be on the bottom of their list.”

Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., who plans to vote against Goldberg’s motion, has been the only council member to speak out against needle exchanges.

“This is not a good way to fight disease,” Svorinich said. “There is no question that AIDS is a serious epidemic but we won’t be sending the right message to people of Los Angeles if we allow the illegal distribution of needles.”