MORGANTOWN, W.Va. A local elected official is sharing his experience with the Living in Good Health Together (LIGHT) program administered by Milan Puskar Health Right in downtown Morgantown in April of 2022.
Geno Chiarelli, (R. Monongalia, 78), is a WVU graduate who has worked for Child Protective Services in West Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Chiarelli wants to provide more direct access to addiction treatment statewide and make changes to the criminal code to more severely punish drug dealers. Chiarelli believes enhanced penalties for users will prevent them from seeking treatment.
“I was in there for about 15 minutes, and I handed over my license, got a bag full of paraphernalia, and asked for as much educational material as I could get,” Chiarelli said. “I got very little; I got an advertisement for Narcan and a pamphlet about hepatitis, but it was entirely in Spanish.”
According to the Milan Puskar Health Right website, “a registered nurse, social worker, medical assistant, nurse practitioner, and volunteers now provide medical attention, linkage, and referral, plus clean syringes, alcohol swabs, and other supplies to people who are injecting substances.”
“I walked in there and left very quickly with just a bag of stuff. There were no referrals to specialists and no treatment planning of any kind,” Chiarelli said. “I gave them my license, I signed a piece of paper, and I left with a bag of paraphernalia. I could have gotten needles if I wanted, but I turned them down.”
Chiarelli said harm reduction is an important part of recovery, but over time, more items to encourage drug use and not prevent disease will be included in the kits.
“If we’re really trying to prevent communicable diseases, why am I being handed a tourniquet?” Chiarelli said. “I don’t feel like the tourniquet is something that would be used to prevent the spread of HIV, hepatitis, or whatever disease we’re talking about.”
Chiarelli said he has had constituents use social media to warn neighborhood members when they find needles on the ground, in parks, or in other areas. In one instance, a mowing crew hit a needle that ended up in the leg of one of the workers, according to Chiarelli. He said people report being harassed in person and online for posting the warnings.
“If you try to bring something up about this, you’re seen as an enemy to those suffering addiction or an enemy to the homeless, and that’s not the case at all,” Chiarelli said. “People are just concerned about the general safety and cleanliness of the area they live in, and I don’t think anything negative.”
Since August of 2015, the harm reduction/syringe access program has been active in downtown Morgantown, across the street from the Public Safety Building. The program is described as a “non-judgmental environment for people with addiction to begin to see there is hope for change.”
Executive Director of Milan Puskar Health Right issued the following response:
I hope that people understand that the experience of one visit to the program is not necessarily everyone’s experience. Had Gino looked in the bag prior to his departure, we could have corrected that mistake. We try to have copies of all of our educational materials out in a rack for people to choose from and we sometimes pick a particular issue and put just that educational information in a pre-made bag.