Harm reduction

A hot topic in WV's capitol city these days is the needle exchange program offered by the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department. Charleston's city council earlier this week essentially voted to delay a vote on eliminating the program.

Charleston's mayor Danny Jones, many of the city's law enforcement officers and others support ending the program because they believe it leaves a lot of dirty needles in public places in its wake.

As I understand it, however, the evidence suggests that ending the program won't end the problem. It could, however increase the number of people using dirty needles. Further, the Centers for Disease Control reports that addicted people who used needle exchange programs are five times more likely to eventually seek treatment than those who don't.

Obviously, it would be great to make the opioid crisis go away. And people are working on that. One huge step forward has been WV's Medicaid expansion as authorized by then Governor Tomblin back in 2013. But while we're working on a long term solution, there's no substitute for harm reduction measures like these programs.