Daniels's reaction to such arguments is usually simple: "They just need to be educated," he will say. But one Wednesday morning as he sits in front of the laptop, he loses that cool exterior. "They need to come out and experience what we really do," Daniels says. "We don't give people syringes to use drugs. We give them syringes to reduce HIV, STDs and STIs [sexually transmitted infections].
The needle exchange work has its roots in the efforts of Jon Parker, a former injection drug user who nearly 18 years ago began distributing (then exchanging) syringes in the streets of New Haven and Boston. Now more than 125 needle exchange programs, privately and/or publicly funded, exist in the United States. Organizations including the Centers for Disease Control, the National Commission on AIDS and the American Public Health Association support exchange programs. Since heroin addicts will shoot anyway, they argue, it's better they do it with clean syringes.
Last year, Daniels helped give out 360,143 clean syringes to 3,180 participants.
His hours are from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., but the work is never really over, at least not for him. He's quick to give out his cell phone number, and participants call him at home, looking for referrals or advice. Like the guy who learned he was HIV-positive and called to ask, "How do I tell my wife?"
Often, the faces stay with him all day, sometimes through the night, or while he sits at home, watching reruns of "Law & Order" with Barbara, his girlfriend of seven years.
"It's easy for people to say, 'Well, you use drugs. You should feel bad. You should feel guilty. You should live this way,' " says Daniels, driving to the second site, catching his breath. He was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 1998, a lung disease that killed his mother and one of his sisters.
The light turns red.
"But no. That's not the way. If she can't quit drugs right now, then, okay, fine, but use a clean needle. If he can't quit drugs right now, then, okay, fine, get tested for HIV or hepatitis C.
"Point is, you gotta stop looking down at them."
The light turns green.
"You gotta meet people where they're at."
Summerfield
It's 1:40 p.m. at the second site of the day. Summerfield steps into the mobile unit, turns in 25 needles.
"How you doin' today?" asks Daniels.
"Everythin' all right," Summerfield, 44, says. "Everythin' all right, Ron." Summerfield's hands have swelled to the size of oversized baseballs, the result, Daniels says later, of fluid buildup. "Too much heroin injections."
The two first met 22 years ago at a shopping center on Naylor Road and Alabama Avenue SE -- "at 6 in the morning," Daniels recalls. The two met to shoot dope, unable to do anything until they got their fix. Sometimes, they shared needles.
"Summerfield has come a long way," Daniels says, a host of questions left hanging in the dry air. If Daniels can quit, then why not his old friend? What makes the difference? How does Daniels come here every day like this, seeing his former running buddies? Does he miss the high? Is he ever tempted?
"Sure, I feel bad when I see him. Sure, I do. But you gotta look at where he was and where he is now, and you gotta look at that from his point of view," Daniels says.
These days, he says, Summerfield uses sterile water, new bottle caps (for cooking the heroin), clean syringes. To an addict like Summerfield who's been injecting heroin since 18, those are big steps, Daniels says.
