How I Became God

1. Termination of an Established Needle-Exchange: A Study of Claims and Their Impact is an article written by Robert S. Broadhead, Yael Van Hulst, and Douglas D Heckathorn, appearing in Social Problems, published in 1999.The information in the is article was split into two parts, Part I: The Social Construction of a Public Health Hazard, deals with the claims making process which brought the needle-exchange process to its demise. Part II: The Impact of the Windham Needle Exchange's Closure, deals with the actual effects of the ended needle exchange , including the percentage of syringe reuse, syringe sharing, discarded syringes, stability and appeal of the Windham drug scene, availability of new syringes, and the new injection-related wish behaviors.

2. The research method used in this article was that of a survey research. The research was done before and after the Windham needle-exchange was extinguished. From March 1994 through February of 1997, 330 initial and 173 follow up wish assessment interviews were conducted of Windham IDUs. After Eleven months 111 "Post- Closure initial" interviews and 78 three month "Post-Closure follow-up" interviews. Also periodic surveys of public outdoors areas where syringes and other drug paraphernalia was recovered. The research was done to survey the changes among drug users with and without the needle exchange program.

3. The needle-exchange originally began as an underground project in 1990. Although the group had experience multiple arrests many of the attempts (majority of the attempts inflicted by the State District Attorney) to prosecute were dropped or dismissed. In 1992 Connecticut General Assembly passed legislation to support a needle-exchange and non-prescription sales of syringes to help combat the spread of HIV. In 1993 state wide assessments showed that fewer IDU's were obtaining syringes from street sources and that the sharing of syringes between IDU's had decreased.

In May of 1996 the same District Attorney that attacked the program years before concocted a series of claims that the needle-exchange was the main cause for the towns drug problems. When the towns local news paper published a local story "A Needle's Prick: How Life Changed In An Instant", the story of a 2 year old child that recovered a used syringe from her back yard and jabbed herself with it, concern began to arise. The Attorney continuing his attack on the needle-exchange program, exposed 369 needles that he claimed had been found in the town of Windham. Although the District attorney was unclear as to where the syringes were found, he did stress that the particular brand of 72 percent of the needles found were that of the brand distributed by the needle exchange. Concern arose to anger and the people of Windham began to take action, flooding the public forum venting their concern, heated town council meetings took place and many supporters of the exchange program lost their jobs. Despite the scientific findings that needle-exchange programs had positive effect, the needle exchange program was banished from the town of Windham.

Although the needle-exchange program tried its best to do good things for the community there were many problems with the programs that eventually snowballed creating further speculation as to whether the program was safe and functioned properly. There was a confusion over how many of the syringes were to be returned, the programs said 88 percent while the state claimed 100 percent, causing a question as to where the power was in the program, in the state or in the program. It was found later that the local law enforcement, having such a negative view for drug addicts, prevented them from returning their needles. Many of the workers in the program seemed defiant in attitude because they felt separated by from the state in some respects, and these attitudes set a sour feeling in the community. Also large obnoxious signs were being placed around town in order to deter children from picking up used needles, the town people saw this as creating a poor perception of the town.

With the loss of the effective needle-exchange program the town of Wilham's efforts to combat AIDS and its willingness to work with the drug community resulted in more severe problems than expected. A survey of drug users was done while the needle-exchange was up and running and then three years later, after the needle-exchange was banned another survey took place. The results of this survey revealed higher levels