cal perlfunc:use docs say

 It is exactly equivalent to

    BEGIN { require Module; import Module LIST; }
[download]

I discovered earlier today (yesterday) that one difference with require is that you can use a full path to the module
(eg. '/u/web/dom/cgi-local/GD.pm') instead of the bareword that use insists on.

I am not sure if there are any caveats with doing this yourself using BEGIN{ require '/path/to/module.pm'; } but it is documented and it does work. Maybe you could try this until or unless someone identifies reasons why it shouldn't be done.