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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Keisha Candanito from Friends of Echo Park
1:45:34
ยท
3 min
Keisha Candanito, representing Friends of Echo Park in The Bronx, speaks in favor of harm reduction services and against the proposed bill. She shares her personal journey from skepticism to support for organizations like OnPoint NYC and St. Ann's Corner of Harm Reduction, emphasizing their positive impact on community health and safety.
- Candanito highlights the importance of harm reduction services in managing needle litter and providing vital support to drug users.
- She references a 1971 quote about the war on drugs, arguing that traditional drug policies have disproportionately harmed communities of color.
- The speaker urges the committee to oppose the bill, stating that restricting harm reduction services would negatively impact both individuals struggling with addiction and the broader community.
Keisha Candanito
1:45:34
Is that it?
1:45:35
Yes.
1:45:35
Okay.
1:45:36
Hi.
1:45:36
Good Sure.
1:45:40
Okay.
1:45:40
Hi.
1:45:41
Good morning.
1:45:42
My name is Keisha Candinito.
1:45:44
I am from a park group called Friends of Echo Park in The Bronx and I just wanted to share something.
1:45:53
I understand where a lot of people are coming from, you know, in in terms of why they wanna do this.
1:45:59
Well, I get it.
1:46:00
I, at one time, felt very similar about drug use and feeling like a lot of these harm reduction services was just another form of enabling people.
1:46:13
But when I've seen the work of two groups in particular that work in Echo Park, 1 is On Point NYC and the other one is Saint Anne's Corner of Harm Reduction.
1:46:24
And I see what they're doing in terms of the services with the vans in the park, how they're picking up most if not all of the needles in the park so that the parks department doesn't have to do it, when I see that they're offering services to the people in the park to come to their facilities to get the wraparound services that they need, it definitely changed my mindset about these harm reduction services.
1:46:49
And so I feel like they are vital to our community.
1:46:54
We need them because without them, we're gonna see a whole mess of needles all over, not just in the park, around the streets, around the neighborhood.
1:47:04
Yes, there's a school down the block, but I'm a tell you, these kids, they're not dumb.
1:47:09
They know what's happening in the street.
1:47:11
We're not hiding anything from them.
1:47:13
They know what's happening but if they see efforts of groups like OnPoint, like Satcher that are trying to help people, I agree with you, where they're at and moving them forward out of addiction, then that's a positive thing for them to witness because otherwise they're just gonna see the the harsh dark reality of these situations with these people that don't change.
1:47:38
I wanna read something from a daily news article, it was written in 1971, and this is from Nixon's domestic affairs assistant John Ellichmann, I don't know if I'm saying it correctly, about the war on drugs.
1:47:53
He says, we know we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or blacks, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
1:48:10
Did we know we were lying about the drugs?
1:48:12
Of course we did.
1:48:14
This is from 1971.
1:48:16
This war on drugs has been going on for fifty four years and it hasn't just been a war on drugs, it's been a war on communities of color to disrupt, to dismantle, and to destroy through drugs.
1:48:31
Okay?
1:48:31
No matter how you slice it, that's exactly what's been happening for fifty four years.
1:48:35
This has been a form of genocide and extermination.
1:48:39
So traditional forms of treating drugs has obviously not worked.
1:48:45
So if we see alternative ways of helping people not to stay in their drug use but to move from it forward, onward, this is what these groups are doing.
1:48:56
So to stop their work now is not only going to make the worse for people who are struggling in addiction, it is going to greatly affect the communities where these people live.
1:49:08
So I am asking that you guys oppose to not pass the the this this bill because it's gonna be bad for all of us as it has been for the past fifty four years.
1:49:21
Thank you so much.