BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, SUPER BOWL WEEKEND, FEB. 3-5, 2017) — Just what the city of Pittsfield needs: A central location that will attract hordes of junkies and drug dealers. That’s what the city will get when it establishes its needle exchange program. Little wonder why neither the mayor, Tapestry Health, nor anyone else is letting the public in on where the home of the program will be located.

In case you haven’t heard, official Pittsfield thinks it can “affect positive change” regarding an out-of-control heroin epidemic. Knowing it won’t stop junkies from shooting up, the city plans to supply fresh needles to the wigged-out stoops in the hope it will keep cases of HIV and Hepatitis C to the minimum. That’s like giving kids free cigarettes because we know they’re going to smoke or providing free motel rooms and condoms because we know they’re going to have sex.

Why should the city spend taxpayers’ hard earned money on futile, preventive measures to “help” irresponsible people who won’t help themselves? Where’s the sense of that? What part of freedom don’t we respect? If people want to kill themselves, let them do so and be done with it. Each fatal drug overdose is one less person for clean up after.

Supplying fresh needles will increase drug use. The math is simple: More fresh needles = more junkies. Is this what Pittsfield wants? And where will it place the needle exchange? That’s going to be a white-hot issue. THE PLANET offers some suitable locations:

HOTEL ON NORTH — The junkies will blend in nicely with the morning crowd that gets its taxpayer-funded highs around the corner at the meth clinic on Summer Street. Foot traffic at HON will be a pleasant change from the present near-desolation there. Why, if it wasn’t for events booked by The Suits, the HON would be a ghost hotel. Seems even NY tourists aren’t stupid enough to pay $450 a night for a room overlooking one of the dirtiest downtowns in the Northeast.

METHUSELAH BAR AND GRILLE — The Meth could offer a happy hour featuring free needles. The underage drinkers it serves would then get their double poisons in one convenient location. Remember, it’s for The Children.

COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL — That room could use something sharper than a bowling ball.

NUCLEA FACILITY — The empty Elm Street building has seen its share of scams and schemes. A needle exchange would be the perfect fit.

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It’s interesting to note that Tapestry, the outfit that will run the program (and make a killing in public money) already has an office on Wendell Avenue. Word on the street is that the needle exchange won’t be run out of there but at a location on North Street in downtown Pittsfield, one of the empty storefronts. You can be sure there’s more than one “Connected” landlord who even as we write has a tourniquet tightening around the proper arm.

Hey, gang, if you want to address a “panel of experts” who will tell you why a needle exchange is the greatest thing since the invention of the toaster, you can do so at 6 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 7 at the Berkshire Athenaeum. You will hear some mighty fine preaching, but be warned. If you are not a member of the choir, they won’t want to hear from you. In Pittsfield, that’s what’s known as Freedom of Speech — right Frank “Foney” Farkas?

If you go, prepare to hear a collection of Fractured Fairy Tales from advocates of the needle exchange. They will tell you how wonderful the experience has been in other cities. They will cite that Garden Spot of Western Mass., Holyoke, and tell you the needle exchange there operates well, a veritable Disneyland of efficiency that hasn’t impacted the neighborhood. Right.

That’s what they still say about the meth clinic in downtown Pittsfield on Summer Street. Show up there at that site early any weekday morning. Watch the junkies come in for their free fix. You will also notice a ton of ancillary business being done. The horse dealers show up in droves, ready to pounce on more new, recidivistic clients.

Ah, Pittfield. How THE PLANET has longed to take you under our wings. But you would not have it. We can only watch as you shrink to gutter size. We can only watch as you punish good citizens and take care of the scum. Official Pittsfield, you richly deserve the fate that’s heading your way.

With that, THE PLANET opens The Comment Line and reminds you to catch our new column in the current edition of Pittsfield’s finest weekly, The Berkshire Courier, free at newsstands everywhere.  Have a great weekend, everybody.

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“I will show you a love potion without drugs … or any witch’s spell. If you wish to be loved, love.” — Charles Lindbergh

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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