Is the sun my enemy?

OK, I know severe sunburns are bad for you, especially if you get them as a kid-- it increases your risk of melanoma as an adult. And if you want the skin of a thirty year old when you're sixty, by all means avoid the sun. But otherwise, why is it again that I'm supposed to think the sun is my enemy? I've never really bought it.

Last month the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology came out with a report saying there were no health benefits in drinking eight glasses of water a day. Hmm...and yet:

• Up to 60 percent of the human body is water
• The brain is composed of 70 percent water
• the lungs are nearly 90 percent water.
• 83 percent of our blood is water, which helps digest our food, transport waste, and control body temperature.
• Each day humans must replace 2.4 litres (about 2 1/2 quarts) of water, some through drinking and the rest taken by the body from the foods eaten. U.S. Geological Survey.

By chance, I found an article from Natural News that summarizes exactly how I feel.

Think about it, for a moment. It is now the position of conventional medicine that:
• Water is bad for you.
• Sunlight is bad for you.
• Nutritional supplements are worthless.
• Herbs are dangerous and might kill you.
• Meditation and prayer has no medical benefit.

And what, might you ask, do these doctors recommend that patients do to enhance their health? Here's what they recommend:
• Poison your body with chemotherapy.
• Slather your skin with sunscreen that blocks vitamin D production.
• Take medications that cause permanent liver damage.
• Drink processed beverages and eat processed, cooked foods.
• "Manage" your biochemistry with medication, not nutrition.
• Have your breasts surgically removed to prevent breast cancer...

Gee, it's no surprise, then, to learn about this latest finding that "water has no health benefits."

Check out the article. Graphic from Kids for Saving Earth.

Ward representation: will the city have made any progress?

The Civil Rights and Race Relations Committee will be meeting again on Wednesday, May 7, 4:30 at the City Council office to figure out how to implement ward representation.. This is a just about when Chair Jose Tosado said the next meeting would take place-- six to eight weeks from the first meeting, which was March 12.

The key item on the agenda, from my point of view, is how elections for School Committee members will play out. When the ward rep bill was placed in the city's ballot last November, it turned out that the City Council had failed to think through what would happen to the staggered terms of those three School Committee members who were elected last fall. Although they're supposed to serve four year terms, there doesn't seem to be any way to implement ward rep without all school committee members starting out on the same foot-- new elections-- in 2009. This didn't make Antoinette Pepe, Chris Collins and Thomas Ashe, who were elected to four year terms last fall, very happy.

I can't think of any other way to resolve this situation, but we'll see what happens Wednesday, when City Attorney Ed Pakula. is supposed to present a legal opinion about how to resolve this situation.

Of course I'm not surprised that the City Council didn't think this through before they submitted the proposed ward rep law to the Legislature for approval to be placed on the ballot. I believe councilors were only thinking about themselves, and how to look like winners in the face of the community's federal lawsuit against the city.

So we shall see what they come up with on Wednesday! I'll report back.

Made in China

Edwards bookstore to close

The news is not entirely unexpected, but Edwards Bookstore in Tower Square, Springfield, will be closing on May 16. The last of the area's independent bookstores will be gone, victim of the mega-bookstores like Barnes & Noble and online sellers like Amazon.com.

I wonder, sometimes, what my life would have been like without Springfield bookstores.

All through high school, I would spend at least three late afternoons a week in Johnson's Secondhand Bookstore, browsing for hours and getting great bargains for a dime. So many of my lifelong interests were shaped sitting on a stool in those narrow isles-- religion, philosophy, history, science, nature-- and, as I think about it, from books ten to sixty years old! I memorized all the bones in the human body from a 1910 anatomy textbook, don't ask me why. Sometimes I'd take my find of the day and go next door to Johnson's Tea Room (which no one seems to remember) for tea and bread pudding. When, at seventeen, I decided to run away from home, I smuggled all my most expensive books to Johnson's where I then sold them (with many apologies) and made enough money for a bus ticket to Boston. Fifteen years later, I was able to diagnose myself with a severe case of lead poisoning based on a 1920's Materia Medica volume (lead poisoning was more common in those days) that somehow had stayed with me from the city to the country.

Not long after high school, I worked in Johnson's Bookstore-- the new section-- for about six months. I remember that certain books were marked with the red letter A, meaning we were not allowed to sell them to anyone under twenty-one-- in fact, I couldn't buy them myself. The A was supposed to stand for "Adult," but I always thought of it as Hawthorne's Scarlet letter. Seemed like there was always a Johnson brother standing in the corner, hands behind his back, rocking slowly on his heels and watching our every move.

After a while Cunningham's Bookstore became my hangout. It was a new kind of bookstore-- paperbacks only-- with authors that would never have turned up at Johnson's: Franz Fanon, William Burroughs, Luigi Pirandello, Edward Becket, Kenneth Patchen, Collette. In that intellectual period between the tail end of the Beat Movement and the first stirrings of the new counterculture, I soaked up everything I could. It was there that I met my first daughter's father and some of the friends I have to this day, forty years later.

And forty years latter, books from Johnson's and Cunningham's are still on my bookshelves. I have about 2,000 books and I've read three-quarters. I'm now at an age where I put a little thought into what I will reread and what I will read for the first time, especially as I now have a passion to understand physics-- don't ask me why-- and you don't exactly zip through a book on string theory.

Sometimes I look at my books and wonder where they will all go when I die. In the meantime, I savor their company.

.

Poverty News from the Southern Hemisphere

An opinion piece in The Australian by the national secretary of the Australian Workers Union is asking labor unions to rethink their migrant labor policies in the face of a shortage of at least 100,000 workers this year.

Recently the Asian Development Bank assessed that at least one-quarter of the people in the Pacific have insufficient incomes to meet their basic needs.

Today in the East Timorese capital of Dili 58 per cent of young people are out of work; one-third of the population of the strife-torn Solomons capital Honiara live in poverty; and more than half the population of Australia's former colony of Papua New Guinea live below the basic needs poverty line.

Previous migrant worker schemes have suppressed wages of Australian workers. (Sound familiar?) But unions could endorse a new plan if:

• First, Australians would get the first opportunity to be employed before any migrant labour is deployed.
• Second, a worker on the scheme can expect to earn the same as an Australian doing the same work.
• And, most importantly, punitive measures would be taken against any employers who seek to exploit the scheme to drive down wages and conditions in their industry or to treat the foreign workers as some sort of indentured slaves.

An opinion piece in the Cebu Daily News, Philippines, blames U.S. speculation in rice on the high prices in the Philippines and elsewhere, pointing out that rice production has greatly exceeded rice consumption in the last thirty years. The editorial also questions why the Philippines, a top rice producer, is finding it necessary to import 2.1 metric tons of rice this year, saying that government officials in the Arroyo administration are lining their pockets from the supposed shortage.

Plastic, chemicals and declining fertility rates: what, me worry?

Back in the early 80's I wrote an article for the Valley Advocate on the decline in sperm count in American men. I can't find it now but what sticks in my mind is that 20 million/mL was now considered within normal range whereas only thirty years before, 80 million/mL was normal. I remember that the chemical dioxin figured prominently as a suspect.

In 1996, Michael Castleman at Mother Jones magazine was bewailing the fact that fourteen years after NBC canceled an interview with the author because the story just wasn't firm enough, declining sperm rates still hadn't cracked prime time.

The silence is still deafening in 2008. We're starting to get the global picture, and we think about our bodies in terms of health, but don't think about declining sperm count unless we're actually trying to have a baby. Talk about a "silent epidemic."

The number of toxic chemicals found in semen and the rest of our bodies is quite astounding. The latest chemical to draw public attention is bisphenol A, a chemical used in the manufacture of hard plastic, including plastic baby bottles. Last week CVS, Walmart and other companies announced that by next year, all such bottles would be off their shelves and replaced with a different (presumably safer) type. Canada intends to ban all bottles with the chemical in 60 days unless evidence can be produced that the chemical is harmless. (Canada is using the Precautionary Principle to make its decision, which manufacturers of the bottles say is unfair. Here's the definition from Wikipedia:

The precautionary principle is a moral and political principle which states that if an action or policy might cause severe or irreversible harm to the public, in the absence of a scientific consensus that harm would not ensue, the burden of proof falls on those who would advocate taking the action.^[1] It aims to provide guidance for protecting public health and the environment in the face of uncertain risks, stating that the absence of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason to postpone measures where there is a risk of serious or irreversible harm to public health or the environment.)

93% of the U.S. population has bisphenol A in their bodies, according to a recent study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some years ago I remember reading that after a while, plastic milk bottles become permeated with fat from the milk. And where do those plastic molecules go, pray tell?

While we're working on the policy issues that affect our well-being, what can we do on a personal level? (Yes, it's still worth it.)

Don't heat food in the microwave using a plastic container. Don't store liquid food, especially acid or fatty foods in plastic. (Come on, hasn't some part of you always known it was a bad thing to do?) In the supermarket, look for foods stored in glass and hang on to the containers later for other uses. Because people don't cook much anymore, secondhand stores usually have plenty of great bakeware with lids, tall glass jars and other dishware for which you'd hesitate to pay full price.

Whatever control over our local environment that we can take, we must.

May Round-Up of News from the Homeless Blogs

When I started this blog, I did a fairly exhaustive hunt for blogs by and/or primarily about homeless people. I found a good number though not as many as I'd hoped, and put them on my blogroll. That was almost a year ago.

Since then, five or six blogs have disappeared or become inactive. If a blog owner hasn't written in five months, I figure they're gone. Two blogs about New Orleans homeless haven't been updated since February, when the injunction prohibiting the destruction of public housing was denied and the tent city that had grown up across from City Hall was forced to dismantle. Clearly, these blogs are linked with the state of organizing. I'm hoping they and the organizing recover.

Many bloggers seem to be taking a moment to think deeply about the bigger picture and root causes. Tim Harris at Apesma's Lament talks about how the huge growth in the prison population and the number of homeless people that began in the 80"s is linked to globalization. Oldtimer Speaks Out has been writing about how psychological and physical damage affects veterans, and how it can lead to homelessness. The latest post is about Rand Corporation's study, "The Invisible Wounds of War." Wandering Vets has the last part of a series on Counting the Homeless, who it serves and how homeless counts obscure the truth. Homeless in Abbotsford, B.C. is blogging about homeless counts, too: the post title is Herd Management.

Jackie Dowd at the 13th Juror is writing about how her home state of Florida is Number One again in documented violence against homeless people. By the way, USAToday has an article on how several states, including Massachusetts, are looking to toughen laws against violence against the homeless. (Couldn't find any reference to it at the Commonwealth's website, but without a docket number, that's not unusual.)

Last but not least, Kevin Barbieux at The Homeless Guy has an apartment! And Homeless Man Speaks talks about what to do with a $5 donation.
Graphic from Riacale's photostream at Flickr.

NAFTA to blame for rise in illegal immigration

Remember those activity books we had when we were kids where you'd have to connect the dots for the picture to take shape? If we connected the dots named NAFTA, illegal immigration, globalization, recession, job loss, environmental degradation and corporate greed, what would the picture look like? We're living in that picture but we have barely begun to connect the forces affecting us.

In 1995 2.5 million Mexicans were in the country illegally; by 2006, another 8 million had crossed the border. A major part of the blame has to go to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Why? Because more and more Mexicans can no longer make a living in Mexico!

• NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their 'death warrant.'
  
• NAFTA's service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
  
• Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour. Roger Bybee and Carolyn Winter, CommonDreams, 2006.
  

Within four years of NAFTA's implementation, 2 million Mexicans had lost their jobs, Mexico's share of imported food grew from 25% to 43%, and 40 million people were living in extreme poverty. Momentum.

Now, with a growing worldwide food crisis, Mexico's food security has been gravely damaged. Yes, there's still food-- but it's growing increasingly unaffordable, as Mexico's cost of living has nearly tripled in the last twelve years, while wages haven't even gone up by a third. Many of Mexico's farmers were strongarmed into growing genetically modified corn-- only to find out that saving seed, a practice thousands of years old in Mexico, was now illegal. New seed has to be bought from companies like Monsanto every year.

What other countries, including Mexico, are experiencing as a tidal wave is still only making ripples on our shore, but our luck won't hold out forever. Until we stop confusing the symptom (illegal immigration) with the cause, we won't be able to take the steps we need to change our ever-darkening picture.

Denis Poroy/AP/Wide World Photos

Couldn't help myself

Sorry....couldn't help myself....I have to post this picture of a mother otter and her baby...from Radikal Photos. (Thanks, Cute Overload!)

The Sack

Mula came upon a frowning man walking along the road to town. “What’s wrong?” he asked. The man held up a tattered bag and moaned, “All that I own in this wide world barely fills this miserable, wretched sack.”

“Too bad,” said Mula, and with that, he snatched the bag from the man’s hands and ran down the road with it.
Having lost everything, the man burst into tears and, more miserable than before, continued walking. Meanwhile, Mula quickly ran around the bend and placed the man’s sack in the middle of the road where he would have to come upon it.
When the man saw his bag sitting in the road before him, he laughed with joy, and shouted, “My sack! I thought I’d lost you!”
Watching through the bushes, Mula chuckled. “Well, that’s one way to make someone happy!”
A Sufi Story from the Middle East
Woodcut from Cudmore's photostream at Flickr

Mistaken order of hard lemonade cases state to remove 7 year old boy

Boing Boing turned me on to a great site today called Don't Tase Me, Bro!-- a blog on the state of civil liberties and personal freedom.

Today's post is the story of a University of Michigan professor who took his 7 year old son to a baseball game and bought him a lemonade-- a Mike's hard lemonade, as it turns out. Dad had never heard of it and didn't know there was alcohol in it. A security guard saw it and turned him in to Child Protective Services, who promtly took possession of his son. Check it out.

No soup kitchen? They'll never know what hit them

Four of us from Arise-- Lamont, Liz, Don James and I-- went down to the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen during supper tonight to talk to folks about the possible scaling back or maybe even closing of the soup kitchen. Liz had flyered at the noontime meal so folks knew we were coming, and that we were encouraging anyone who wanted to speak out about why the soup kitchen (and the food pantry) are so important to them to do so.

Some time this week-- maybe even tomorrow-- the Massachusetts Legislature will vote on an amendment to provide funding for the parent organization, Open Pantry Community Services. The amendment will be bundled in with dozens of others, and what will actually happen feels more like a crap shoot. I wrote about the amendment numbers and who to call here, and if you live in Massachusetts, haven't done so already, please call.

Open Pantry is broke and the city of Springfield isn't making any appreciable effort to help them. I know many agencies that help the poor are hurting. But no one can replace the role the OP plays among the community of the poor.

I saw a lot of people I know at the soup kitchen and at least one of them had good news-- he'd gotten an apartment through the city's Housing First program. Three years ago he'd been living at our six-month tent city. I saw my old friend Patrick, though, and he didn't look so good-- lost weight. I almost didn't recognize him.

The tables at the soup kitchen are not segregated, of course, but folks do tend to sort themselves out. Most of the elder Puerto Ricans sit near the kitchen and are very quiet. Single guys and women tend to sit at the tables down the middle. I saw one man I'd never seen before-- quite elderly, quite thin, in a wheelchair. I saw another guy who I'd paid to help me paint my apartment and we made arrangements for him to pick up the CDs he'd left at my house. A half dozen children sat with their parents.

The young people, those 25 or younger, sit at the tables on the sides. I don't think most people realize how very young and how very the old people who eat at soup kitchens can be. I was admiring some of the art work on the walls that is the product of Tuesday and Thursday art classes where another one of our members, Linda, is one of the teachers.

"I've been thinking of going," a blonde girl surely no more than 20 said.
"Yeah, do it," I said.

Some people who eat at soup kitchens have absolutely no food at home-- if they have a home. They might be camping or stopping for supper on their way to the shelter. Or they have a home but it's just empty. Some people who eat at the soup kitchen actually do have a little food in the cupboard. Sure, they could eat that can of creamed corn they're so sick of looking at, or the fruit cocktail. But they'd rather go down to Loaves and Fishes where they are less alone, where they can be among friends.

Maybe I just haven't been hanging out with homeless people often enough recently to see the strengths and endurance I can usually see in the community, but I must say tonight's people looked fragile and shell-shocked. Still friendly (or not), still smiling (or not) , the outlines of their bodies seemed less distinct, almost smudged. Maybe that's just me. But I'm afraid.

Winter shelters close, homeless encampments grow

"The Amherst, MA Survival Center is starting to get more calls as emergency shelters are closing. People need tents," the email began. "Do you have one hanging around that a homeless person can use until they get on their feet? Please... we only have 2 left and the phone is ringing off the hook!!!"

Thus begins the annual ritual of closing winter-only shelters, not only in Massachusetts but around the country. For the most part, homeless people won't be moving from the shelters to housing, although Springfield, MA's homeless coordinator says 7 of the 12 people in the overflow shelter do have housing waiting for them. Elsewhere in the state, Northampton's Cot Shelter will close on April 30. There are already 50 to 90 people sleeping out on the Cape, according to Cape Cod Today, in 40 or so small encampments.

In Plano, TX, many of the homeless people that had to be turned away by the Samaritan in this winter have been sleeping in their cars in the parking lot of the local library-- at least up until now. The City Council passed an ordinance on April 14 forbidding any parking in the lot between 11 am. and 5 pm. See if you buy this one: "Joyce Baumbach, the director of libraries, said the ordinance isn't just targeting homeless people. "Some of the neighbors do use the lot for extra parking or if they have company overnight," Baumbach said. "They will also not be allowed to park overnight anymore." NBC5 Dallas/Fort Worth.

Pinellas Hope shelter in St. Petersburg, FL has raised enough money to stay open through the summer, although on a greatly reduced basis-- 75 guests a night rather than the 250 it's housed over the last five months. Turlock, California's winter shelter closed at the end of March, but not quietly:: 150 homeless people and allies protested on the steps of City Hall. Earlier in March, "Vice Mayor Kurt Vander Weide, Councilmen Ted Howze and Kurt Spycher voted against extending the B Street shelter in downtown by 30 days, citing reasons of political ideology and the weather." (!!) Modesto Bee. When Springfield, Illinois closed its SOS shelter, also at the end of March, one option the homeless there used to have is now denied to them: camping on the library grounds. The city made it clear it's not going to be allowed this year.

Sleeping out isn't always very safe. Two homeless men burned to death in Olympia, WA when a canopy strung between two trees caught fire and fell on the men during the night.

Half of Madison, WI's homeless population of 3,400 is unsheltered and walking the streets, but they're not feeling very welcome these days. Two unsolved murders in two months.has put the community on edge and a lot of suspicion is focused on homeless people. Chicago Tribune.

As cities and towns and the people who live in them struggle economically, seems like there's not much left for the people who have theleast.

Poetry contest - I got honorable mention

Every now and then something happens which brings different pieces of my life together. A couple of months ago I went to the Springfield Library to hear poet Martin Espada read-- always a treat-- and while I was there I found out that the library was having a poetry contest for Western Mass. poets. Without much thought or expectation, I picked a poem and sent it in. Lo and behold, I got honorable mention; yesterday the poets read their chosen works to a small band of other poets and friends at the library..

I was honored to get some kind and encouraging words from Magdelena Gomez, a poet whose work I admire very much. I was relieved also that people seemed to think the poem was better than I thought it was.

It's been years since I seriously thought of trying to get my poems published-- but I still write, and I still get pleasure from modeling words like clay to a desired effect. Most of my poems are much smaller than the one I submitted, more precise and not overtly political. But every now and then I write a poem like the one that follows:

The poets gather.
The revolutionary poets gather.
The revolutionary poets gather
on college campuses
where they have come to be heard
where someone else handles all the logistics, thank god
where they will be PAID
because poetry is WORK
aand poets have a right to make a living
form their amazing ability
to pin joy and pain
to the page with the right words.

They have come
riding on aged white reputations
on Spanish surnames and decade-new African names
to talk to fresh young minds.
O dear children, we will let you in
on why poetry is revolutionary
how poetry fights racism and sexism and imperialism.
We will tell you why these small words
have so much meaning beyond themselves
how the teacup leaves are a metaphor for the whole world
and maybe someday you too, you too, you too and if you can't
you can still be a part, you can still be inspired by us.

Meanwhile, across the river and the railroad tracks, three sounds:
almost too low to hear, awakening anger,
laying down the baseline, a soft mutter:

It ain't supposed to be like this,
it's supposed to be better.
It ain't supposed to be like this,
it's supposed to be better.

Then a sound so high, like a scream of horror:

My children, my children,
how did this happen?
My children, my children,
how did this happen?

Then the middle notes, which only need to be louder

to find each other:
I wish I had a job, a home,
I wish the cops would leave me alone.
I wonder if they rape my son
behind the bars when he's alone.
I never thought I'd say this, but
I hate this fucking rice so much.
If she drops out of school, what then?
I went to the shelter but couldn't get in.
We wait in the line. I look in your eyes.
I think we are planning a big surprise.

Choreography will be done
by experts in sidestepping disaster.
Theme provided by necessity,
rhythm courtesy of our hearts.
Soon to be playing everywhere.

Needle Exchange

Posting the story about David Hoose's law firm and how he defended Arise when we were raided got me thinking about needle exchange.

Before 2006, when pharmacy sale of syringes was legalized in Massachusetts-- one of only four states to still prohibit such sales-- IV drug users' only legal route to needles was through one of the state's four sanctioned NEX programs. Arise and others, such as Springfield's Department of Health and Human Services, tried and failed to get a similar program in Springfield-- a long and frustrating story. .

Although the four Massachusetts needle exchange programs still exist, much of the political controversy-- and organizing!-- has died away. I checked several websites, including the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts, and the Drug Policy Alliance, and the parts of their websites concerned with NEX haven't been updated since the pharmacy sales law was passed.

One advantage that NEX programs continue to have over pharmacy sales is that people who use the exchanges are more likely to seek treatment for addiction. You're in an environment where drug use doesn't have to be hidden, where you are not judged by your addiction, where information on access to treatment is all around you with staff ready to help you if you want to quit.

Actually getting access to treatment, of course, is another story. At one point real organizing was done around "Treatment on Demand" and people more people were aware of the issue. Now that issue and its organizing seems to have become a casualty of Massachusett's budget crisis.

Most people think of recovery from drug addiction in terms that jump from zero to one hundred with nothing in between. They don't understand what harm reduction is even though they may use it in their own lives. (Can't stop smoking yet but you can cut down; you drink too much but won't get behind the wheel of a car.) But harm prevention for drug users gets little respect. I guess it's not absolute enough in the world of personal responsibility.

Some harm reductionists believe that all the harm that is done by drugs stems from their prohibition. I'm not in that category, although I know that criminalizing drug use is far, far less effective in turning addicts into non-addicts than is a public health approach.

If someone had asked me why I choose to give IV drug users clean needles, I would not have said it was because I supported their drug use. I would have said then as I say now, Stay alive, stay alive as long as you can to increase the chances that one day you will stop using.

Springfield loses major law firm

After twenty years at their 1145 Main St., Springfield address, the law firm of of Sasson, Turnbull and Hoose is moving its main practice to Amherst. They say they plan to maintain a satellite office at their old address, but it won't be the same.

Although the firm is "full service," they are probably best known for their work in civil rights and criminal law, taking many cases with unpopular criminal defendants. Somebody has to do it, right? (Some of you would say no.)

David Hoose represented me after Arise was raided and Tory Field and I were charged with possession of hypodermic needles. He will always have my gratitude.

The firm's move is yet another loss for Springfield.

Nonprofit agrees to DA's terms
Saturday, October 02, 2004
By MARLA A. GOLDBERG
Staff writer

SPRINGFIELD - An application for a criminal complaint against Arise for Social Justice was withdrawn yesterday, as the nonprofit group agreed not to run an unlicensed needle-exchange program in the future.

A search at the group's 94 Rifle Street office last month yielded 380 unused hypodermic syringes, 62 syringe preparation kits and a medical container of
used needles. Police said they would seek warrants against Arise's president, Michaelann C. Bewsee, 56, and an organizer, Tory L. Field, 28.

However, Hampden County District Attorney William M. Bennett said that he and the police together withdrew the application for a complaint.
"The purpose of the police action was to stop the activity, and that will be accomplished," Bennett said, crediting police with professional handling of
the Arise matter.

"They understand that reasonable people could disagree regarding the merits of needle exchange programs," Bennett said.

Bewsee and Field were summonsed to Springfield District Court yesterday for a show-cause hearing, which turned out to be brief. Lawyer David Hoose, who
represented Bewsee, said the district attorney's office decided against requesting the complaint "so long as our clients agree not to operate any
illegal needle-exchange in the future."

The case was continued for three months, Bennett said, to make sure the parties live up to the agreement. If they do, the case will be terminated.
Bennett characterized Arise's actions as well-intentioned but unlawful. City Councilor Bud L. Williams has said he is pushing forward with efforts
to start a legal needle-exchange program in Springfield. State law gives local elected officials the power to adopt a state Department of Public
Health-run needle-exchange program. Programs operate in Northampton, Cambridge, Boston and Provincetown.

Bennett said he doesn't favor such programs.

"The needle is given to a person who is going to use it to commit a crime, that is, possessing illegal drugs. Also, it creates the false impression
that there is a safe way to use dangerous drugs," Bennett said.

Proponents of needle-exchange programs maintain the spread of blood-borne diseases can be slowed if addicts who might otherwise share needles can be
supplied with clean ones.

About eight people, including Arise board member Polly Richardson, gathered at the Hall of Justice yesterday in support of Bewsee and Field. The
problem, Richardson said, is Springfield's failure to run a licensed needle-exchange program.

"This is negligence on the city council's part," Richardson said. "This is a public health issue we're talking about - that should be the focus of all of
this."

Bewsee said that while she was personally relieved by yesterday's outcome, the problem of people needing clean needles remains. People from Springfield
requiring needle exchange can drive to Northampton and enroll in the Tapestry program, or drive to Connecticut, where needles are sold at
pharmacies, she said.

"I feel like we're at court today for something that shouldn't be illegal to begin with," Field said.