Trash-talking harm reduction

A national conference on methamphetamine will convene Friday in Salt Lake, but first it has to go through a ritual political bashing.

Rep. Mark Souder, R-Indiana, wrote to Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt:

"I am enormously frustrated with your department for dithering on the meth issue while the rest of America fights an epidemic that is viciously tearing apart families and communities."

"Whatever," former Zion governor Leavitt is rumored to have replied.

Actually, Luciano Colonna, head of the Harm Reduction Project in Salt Lake City and the conference's organizer, had the comeback:

Outraged by what he called the "arrogance and nastiness" of Souder's letter, Colonna said the conference aims to promote collaboration among police agencies, researchers and substance abuse counselors - not to hold up harm reduction as a cure-all...

To make snap judgments about the lectures, delivered by academicians, "is to do a disservice to the 900 people who signed up to attend," said Colonna.