Needle Exchange – Kate Sykes for District Five

Welcome to the District Five Insider, a newsletter about the big decisions making their way through the City Council, what they mean for District Five, and how you can get involved. Follow to subscribe, and receive this newsletter in your mailbox.

Tuesday October 22, 2024

One Big Thing: Balancing Public Health and Community Concerns

Last night, the City Council made an important decision to protect public health while acknowledging the valid concerns of our residents regarding needle waste.

The Council voted not to move forward with Mayor Dion’s resolution to implement a restrictive 1:1 needle exchange ratio. While the intention behind the proposal was to address concerns about improperly discarded needles, this proposal would have undermined the successful work of Portland’s harm reduction programs, making it harder for people who use drugs to access clean syringes and increasing the likelihood of disease transmission.

Instead, we took a step forward by appropriating $936,479 in opioid settlement funds to three critical public health programs:

Syringe Redemption Program – This innovative buy-back pilot, which has been successful in other communities, will encourage the return of used syringes, helping to reduce needle waste across the city.
On-Peninsula Methadone Treatment Program – Bringing treatment closer to those in need, making it more accessible for Portland’s residents struggling with opioid addiction.
Day Space for Unhoused Residents – A safe, supportive environment where people can access essential services, including harm reduction resources.

These programs will strengthen our city’s harm reduction efforts, keep our streets safer, and help those suffering from opioid use disorder get the treatment they need. By rejecting a harmful 1:1 exchange policy, we ensure that Portland remains a compassionate, effective leader in public health.

Two More Quick Hits:

1. Portland’s Green New Deal in Action

At the meeting, we received the Fossil Fuel Infrastructure Report from Sustainability Director Troy Moon. This annual report highlights Portland’s progress in transitioning to green building technologies, demonstrating how our Green New Deal is improving environmental outcomes while also ensuring economic equity.

Notable projects like Portland Commons and The Casco have been developed without reliance on fossil fuels, setting a new standard for sustainable construction in our city. These projects show that it’s possible to balance development with strong environmental and social standards.

It’s critical that we defend these gains against efforts to roll back inclusionary zoning protections, which ensure that Portland remains affordable for all its residents. By aligning climate action with housing equity, our Green New Deal is a model for progressive cities across the country, and we will continue pushing forward to protect both our environment and our community’s affordability.

2. Kiwanis Pool Project Funded and Approved

Great news for our community! The Council passed a $5.63 million appropriation to fund the Kiwanis Pool replacement project. This funding comes from a mix of $4.63 million in interest income earned from the city’s investment of American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and an anticipated $1 million in private donations. These funds will ensure we move forward with modernizing the pool, which will include ADA accessibility improvements, making it a welcoming and inclusive facility for all Portland residents. After delays due to higher-than-expected costs, we have secured the necessary resources to get the project back on track.

Save the Date: District 5 Community Meeting

I’m excited to invite you to our next District 5 in-person meeting!

Date: Wednesday, November 20, 2024
Time: 6:00 PM
Location: Casco Bay High School Great Space

Stay tuned for more details. This will be a chance to connect, discuss local issues, and make your voice heard. I look forward to seeing you there!

ksykes@portlandmaine.gov 207-558-5764

Notice: Under Maine law, documents – including e-mails and text messages – in the possession of public officials or city employees about government business may be classified as public records. There are very few exceptions. As a result, please be advised that what is written in a text message or e-mail could be released to the public and/or the media if requested.

Thursday, Sept 12, 2024

The only public health risk from needles is that we might not give out enough of them.

As a City Councilor and former healthcare educator, I have a duty to speak out against Mayor Dion’s dangerous and irresponsible opinion piece in the Press Herald today that spreads misinformation and puts members of the intravenous drug-using community at increased risk.

Portland has a syringe distribution program because it is good public health practice, not “group think.” Worldwide, over one million people die every year from deadly infections caused by the reuse of needles, costing the public billions of dollars in treatment and end-of-life care. Many also suffer from limb-threatening skin infections and sepsis.

Having good needle distribution coverage is a key component of an effective disease prevention program. HIV and hepatitis B and C treatment is so costly (on the order of millions of dollars per patient) that even one additional infection can negate the cost savings of having a program at all. It’s a fragile equation: a syringe services program with an annual budget of $500,000 needs to prevent 3 new HIV infections per year to be cost-saving. To do that, we need to make sure everyone who needs a syringe can get one. No questions asked.

No one likes seeing needles on the ground. They are a reminder that people are hurting, and that there is a raging opioid epidemic happening all around us. But having a well-run needle distribution program like we have here actually improves needle disposal, because it comes along with public support for education, disposal, and needle boxes. If we are seeing increased needle waste, there are more effective interventions we can take to address this. Reducing the number of needles we give out is not one of them. Expert consensus on best practices for needle distribution programs is to have no limits on the number of needles given out, so that people can take extra needles back to members of their community who may not be able to access the program themselves.

The fact that we freely distribute a lot of needles in Portland, during an opioid crisis, is a very good thing, not a problem. Trying to arbitrarily shrink this program down to a 1:1 clean-for-dirty “needle exchange” does nothing to solve opioid addiction, will result in a secondary public health crisis, and is not an evidence-based approach to reducing needle waste.

It is really important to educate people who are concerned for their safety that the risk of communicable disease from needles found on the ground is extremely, extremely low. In a worldwide non-healthcare workplace study, spanning more than 20 years since the start of the AIDS epidemic to 2008, less than 3 confirmed cases of HIV, hepatitis B/C transmission from needle sticks were identified. Extrapolate that out beyond the workplace, to the public at large, and the threat posed by discarded needles is certainly not “a daunting hazard to Portlanders” or equal in any way to an HIV/HCV/HBV outbreak among drug users.

The fear of needles is deeply rooted in our society, and so is the fear of IV drug users and homeless people. Changing public policy to align with fears that have absolutely no basis in fact would be a grave mistake. A better solution to Portland’s needle waste concerns is to implement a program founded in public health research, such as a needle buy-back program, which is incentivizing, not punitive, and has been effective in Boston and New York at reducing needle waste. That is the solution I support.

We are in an opioid epidemic because greedy pharmaceutical companies pushed these addictive drugs on the public. We have a needle waste problem because the commodification of housing has resulted in a housing affordability crisis that leaves many people who use IV drugs unsheltered, with nowhere to dispose of their syringes. Instead of fighting needle distribution, let’s apply our efforts towards social programs that build housing and create addiction recovery beds.