Tainan Deputy Mayor Yen Chun-tso (顏純左) earlier this month received the US President’s Lifetime Achievement Award for his efforts to combat drug abuse and AIDS by giving methadone substitutes and sterilized needles to drug users.
The medal and a certificate signed by US President Barack Obama was presented to Yen by five delegates from Points of Light, a US non-profit organization, acting on behalf of the US Corporation of National and Community Service.
Trained as a doctor before he entered politics 10 years ago, Yen pioneered the use of methadone maintenance treatment and harm reduction therapy in Taiwan.
His work has helped opiate users to quit their addictions and reduced the risk of AIDS infection by distributing clean needles among intravenous drug users.
Yen said that when he assumed his post, his mentor and then-minister of health Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) told him that AIDS infections in Tainan had “doubled or tripled” in recent years, something Yen said was “shocking,” to him.
Yen discovered that incarcerated opiate addicts accounted for the largest number of AIDS patients, and that the most significant infection risk was needle-sharing among addicts.
Yen said that he decided to help people addicted to opiates and AIDS patients by distributing methadone shots and clean needles, rather than enacting more laws.
Yen knew his plan was controversial and privately dubbed it “project insanity.”
When Yen discussed it with his family his mother told him: “‘If this works, the drug dealers who lost business will try to kill you. If it doesn’t, the public will make you wish they did,’” he said.
“If you think it will work, then do it without worrying; life and death is decided by providence alone,” his father said.
Yen said that at the time, the policy was panned by critics for encouraging drug use.
However, the results of the trial were promising.
Within eight months of opening the Tainan needle exchange, 32,000 needles were distributed by pharmacies, or 80 percent of the national total.
The proportion of reported AIDS infections in Tainan as a percentage of all known cases in Taiwan fell from 73 percent in 2005 to 2.5 percent in 2007.
The turning point for Yen was when he was told that a person exchanged 500 used needles for new ones at a pharmacy.
“I knew then that it was working,” Yen said, adding that when drug dealers are involved in protecting the health of their clientele, infection risk is managed at source.
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