NEEDLE EXCHANGE PROGRAM SCENE OF SAD STORIES

The half-dozen heroin addicts quoted below shared their stories as a way to
warn young people not to follow their paths to destruction.

They were among several dozen addicts who visited the Bridgeport Needle
Exchange Program van at various locations in the city during two recent days.

During their daily stops, outreach workers exchange anywhere from 25 to 125
dirty needles for clean ones. The van also offers AIDS tests, condoms,
assistance in getting treatment for substance abuse and literature on
safely injecting drugs (to prevent abscesses and other injection-related
infections).

The free needle exchange, funded with less than $100,000 a year by the
state and operated by the city's Health Department, has been in existence
since 1993.

The names used are "street names," a kind of a code that addicts use on the
streets and in certain social programs to permit anonymity. In a few cases,
people asked not to be identified at all, and in those situations quotation
marks have been placed around names to indicate they are not the real or
street names.

It was a little more than three years ago when tragedy struck.

Tata woke up from a coma of three weeks and doctors gave her the tragic
news - her son and husband had died in the head-on collision that also had
injured her.

The 30-year-old developed a taste for morphine during her hospital stay.
When she was finally released, she turned to a similar drug to help her
cope with her loss.

Today, Tata is a heroin addict.

"Does it look infected?" Tata asks as outreach worker Maria Melendez
inspects needle tracks on her arm.

"No, no 8A but watch it. Here, let's do this," says Maria, carefully
rubbing an antibiotic cream on the sore spot and tenderly placing a
Band-Aid over it.

"Tata, you know I love you, but you got to stop. You've got to get in
rehab," Maria says without scorn.

"I know, I know. I want to stop, I really do. But, it's got a hold on me."

Wearing knee-length khaki shorts, an Adidas jacket and sporty sunglasses,
Chino could easily pass for any college student. That's unless you happen
to see the tracks on his arms - the spots where he injects needles to get
his heroin fixes.

It's something he's been doing since he was 13, something he learned by
watching others in his poor neighborhood.

Today, Chino, now 32, asks for help again. He uses the cell phone in the
van to call a detox program. The program doesn't have a bed, so he tries
another. Still, no luck. He promises Maria he'll come back and try again
tomorrow. If he's accepted, it won't be the first time. Chino's been
through rehab before. Once he managed to stay clean for six months.

"Sandy" is sick. She's nauseated, her joints ache, her nose is running -
she's suffering heroin withdrawal. It's something that happens to heroin
addicts about every six to eight hours if they don't take the drug.

As she exchanges her used needle for a clean one, outreach workers give her
some orange juice.

I take her 5-year-old son down the block, where I have a small cooler with
soda and cookies. I don't want him to see his mother getting her new
needles. I think to myself how ironic it is to try to protect this little
boy from the kinds of things he probably witnesses every day.

When he leaves, after telling me his name, how old he is and who his
favorite cartoon character is, I break down in tears. He's the same age as
my nephew. The outreach workers and some heroin addicts on the van chuckle,
then hug me.

"It's hard, huh? How do you think we feel seeing this stuff every day 8A
some days, it's just too much. Pregnant women who are about to give birth
any minute 8A there's this one couple that comes with their 5-month-old
baby. It breaks your heart. You do what you can do," said Maria, who
herself adopted and is raising a drug-addicted baby from one of the girls
she often tried to help on the van.

When P.J. steps in the van, I am again shocked. Judging by the boots he has
on, he's obviously a working man 8A and a very nice-looking one at that.
He's 32, same as me, and looks like a guy I dated once. Talking to him, I
learn he comes from a quite-prominent family that owns a large company.
He's intelligent, quick-witted and very sad.

He tells me he just began a methadone program, which causes me to question
why he's using heroin. I've been told repeatedly that you can't get high if
you're using methadone.

"That's true," he said, but his methadone dosage isn't high enough yet and
he's still getting "dope sick" from not using heroin. Plus, he likes
putting the needle in arm. What?! That's right, he says, a lot of people
are addicted to using the needle, watching the liquid flow into their veins.

Just when I think I'm getting a glimpse into this world so different from
mine, I get thrown for another loop.

P.J. has been using heroin for three years.

"I live a normal life. I work. I spend time with my daughter. When I look
at her, she's so beautiful 8A it makes me want to quit so bad," P.J. says
talking about his 2-year-old.

He says he was never much of a drug user before heroin. He drank on the
weekends when he went dancing at clubs, and sometimes he smoked pot. But
then, someone introduced him to heroin "and I was hooked."

"Diana" is a striking young woman who tells me she's 27. As I look at her I
can't get over how heroin affects so many types of people from all walks of
life. This woman should be a model, a college student, a mother at the
playground - she should not be a heroin addict, I tell myself.

"I don't usually look this way, it's just that I've been bingeing 8A I
haven't been home for days. My mother is probably worried about me 8A
well, maybe not, she's used to it," says "Diana," self-consciously brushing
her hair from her face. "People think drug addicts are all diseased people
with missing teeth, but I'm not like that. I take care of myself," she says.

As she leaves, Maria tells me, "Now that one, she breaks my heart. She was
my daughter's friend. She was at my house every day. She's so smart and
pretty 8A but now this. She was raped not too long ago." Maria tells me
rape is common among addicts, who often buy their drugs in places they
would never go if it weren't for their addiction.

"Diana" first used heroin 11 years ago, as a 16-year-old high school
student. She was at a friend's house when the two girls came upon some
heroin belonging to her friend's father. That's when "Diana" began what she
calls "the road to hell."

Foxy looks hard, like an addict. She doesn't seem to care about anything.
Maybe once she did. She doesn't want to talk to me about how she got
started using drugs and she certainly doesn't want to hear what Maria says
about getting treatment. Still, Maria pushes forward. To her, there are no
lost causes.

"Foxy, how many bags are you using a day?"

"As many as I can get," Foxy says with a laugh.

"You're using crack, too?"

"Only when I have it," she wisecracks again.

"Foxy, you're killing yourself 8A you know that? You're dying," Maria
tells her.

"Hey 8A it's the American way," Foxy says as she steps off the van and
wanders down the street.

Small white business cards plaster sections of wall in the van.

Written over street names like Chicken Wing and Shorty with a black marker
are the letters "RIP."

The cards once served as a way to identify participants in Bridgeport's
Needle Exchange Program. Today, they're reminders of those whose lives were
cut short by AIDS, murder, overdoses 8A Whatever their end, their
beginning was the same, intravenous drug use.

Clipped-out obituaries show photos of attractive young women and smiling men.

Maria, until 13 years ago an addict herself, can tell you every one of
their stories. She laughs remembering some of their playful antics,
reminding you that these were people, not just addicts or prostitutes, but
mothers, sons, neighbors and co-workers. They were once, she says, "people
just like you and me."

Below is a sample of the Needle Exchange Program schedule:

P.T. Barnum Apartments: Every Monday through Friday, 10:30-noon.

Downtown, Middle Street: Monday through Thursday, 12:15-1:15 p.m.

Marina Village Apartments: Mondays, 3:30-4:30 p.m.; Tuesdays and Thursdays,
1:30-2 p.m.; Wednesdays, 5:30-6:30 p.m.

East Main and Artic streets: Mondays and Thursdays, 2:15-2:45 p.m; Tuesdays
and Wednesdays, 6:45 p.m.-7:30 p.m.

Lisa Hurt, assistant Fairfield County editor, can be reached at 330-6225.