Last fall I traveled the country to see how communities are
responding to rising heroin and opioid use, which by now has become
national epidemic. I traveled through North Carolina, West Virginia,
Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Washington, D.C. – some of the places hit
hardest by heroin over the last 10 years.
This crisis is raising big questions across the country. How do we stop the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV? How can people get the addiction treatment they deserve? And how do we protect law enforcement officers from being stuck with dirty needles?
With rates of heroin use quadrupling in our state over the last five years, North Carolina, too, is now grappling with these questions. Yet the solution, proven in communities across the country, is simple. We must legalize syringe exchanges.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sharing syringes accounts for 19 percent of new HIV infections in the United States. Syringe exchange programs help reverse this figure, largely by providing drug users with sterile syringes, while collecting used, contaminated syringes. These programs also offer their clients referrals to addiction treatment and other needed social services.
Syringe exchanges fill a significant gap in our current laws. People share syringes when they can’t get new ones, due to laws – like those in North Carolina – that criminalize the possession of syringes.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but syringe exchange programs do not increase drug use. People suffering from addiction will use drugs with or without a clean syringe. What syringe exchanges do, instead, is affect how many people share syringes and how much taxpayers pay for costly diseases.
Austin, Indiana, is a rural community where an HIV outbreak caused by needle-sharing made international headlines last year. But the county took action to reverse the local epidemic. Officials and health professionals established a syringe exchange, based in a health clinic. It’s surprising to see how routine and normal the clinic looks. Beyond exchanging syringes, the one-stop-shop clinic also provides education and connects clients to social services, food, flu shots, TB tests, and resources for employment, helping to reverse some of the struggles that come with addiction. Many people who originally visited the exchange just for needles were eventually able to seek addiction treatment. The exchange meets a real need in the community.
When I visited a needle exchange program at a large nonprofit clinic in Washington, D.C., I spoke with clients about their experience at the exchange. I told them that syringe exchanges are illegal in North Carolina. They were all shocked. “I wouldn’t be alive without this program,” said one man, who became addicted to opioids after suffering an injury at work.
Criminalizing syringe exchanges punishes not just people who use drugs, but all of us. We punish ourselves with higher taxes to pay for treatment for people with HIV and Hepatitis C acquired from shared needles. And we expose our law enforcement officers and children to injury.
Syringe exchange may not be the obvious choice, but it’s the right one. It’s time for North Carolina to adopt this solution.
This crisis is raising big questions across the country. How do we stop the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV? How can people get the addiction treatment they deserve? And how do we protect law enforcement officers from being stuck with dirty needles?
With rates of heroin use quadrupling in our state over the last five years, North Carolina, too, is now grappling with these questions. Yet the solution, proven in communities across the country, is simple. We must legalize syringe exchanges.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, sharing syringes accounts for 19 percent of new HIV infections in the United States. Syringe exchange programs help reverse this figure, largely by providing drug users with sterile syringes, while collecting used, contaminated syringes. These programs also offer their clients referrals to addiction treatment and other needed social services.
Syringe exchanges fill a significant gap in our current laws. People share syringes when they can’t get new ones, due to laws – like those in North Carolina – that criminalize the possession of syringes.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but syringe exchange programs do not increase drug use. People suffering from addiction will use drugs with or without a clean syringe. What syringe exchanges do, instead, is affect how many people share syringes and how much taxpayers pay for costly diseases.
People
share syringes when they can’t get new ones, due to laws – like those
in North Carolina – that criminalize the possession of syringes.
By
now, the benefits of syringe exchanges are undisputable. Cities and
states with syringe exchange programs have lowered the rates of new HIV
infections among drug users by up to 80 percent and Hepatitis C rates by
50 percent. Legal needles also mean people are more likely to declare
them to police before being searched, and less likely to discard them in
public places, like parks. One study from Connecticut reported that
needle-stick injuries among police decreased by 66 percent when needles
were made legal.Austin, Indiana, is a rural community where an HIV outbreak caused by needle-sharing made international headlines last year. But the county took action to reverse the local epidemic. Officials and health professionals established a syringe exchange, based in a health clinic. It’s surprising to see how routine and normal the clinic looks. Beyond exchanging syringes, the one-stop-shop clinic also provides education and connects clients to social services, food, flu shots, TB tests, and resources for employment, helping to reverse some of the struggles that come with addiction. Many people who originally visited the exchange just for needles were eventually able to seek addiction treatment. The exchange meets a real need in the community.
When I visited a needle exchange program at a large nonprofit clinic in Washington, D.C., I spoke with clients about their experience at the exchange. I told them that syringe exchanges are illegal in North Carolina. They were all shocked. “I wouldn’t be alive without this program,” said one man, who became addicted to opioids after suffering an injury at work.
Criminalizing syringe exchanges punishes not just people who use drugs, but all of us.
So
what does North Carolina need to do? Legalize syringe exchanges. Not
only exchanges that can operate out of medical clinics and health
departments, but those run by smaller community-based organizations with
strong, trusting relationships with people who use drugs.Criminalizing syringe exchanges punishes not just people who use drugs, but all of us. We punish ourselves with higher taxes to pay for treatment for people with HIV and Hepatitis C acquired from shared needles. And we expose our law enforcement officers and children to injury.
Syringe exchange may not be the obvious choice, but it’s the right one. It’s time for North Carolina to adopt this solution.
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