A San Diego City Council subcommittee vote to adopt a clean needle exchange program marked a victory for local activists after years of discouraging results.
Now it remains up to the City Council to decide the controversial program’s fate. A date for that vote hasn’t been set, according to the mayor’s office.
Local activists, including Alliance Healthcare Foundation, have been lobbying to get a resolution adopted since Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill into law that makes needle exchanges legal if local governments declare a public health emergency.
Proponents of needle exchanges say allowing drug users to swap unsterilized needles for fresh ones instead of exchanging needles among each other can prevent the spread of disease, such as hepatitis C and AIDS.
This in turn, would save taxpayers, the government and health care providers hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to treat such diseases.
Opponents contend such a program would send the wrong message that illegal drug use is tolerated. Critics also say allowing drug users to exchange dirty needles for clean ones promotes drug use and crime.
The 3-1 vote by the City Council’s Public Safety and Neighborhood Services Committee on Sept. 11 is a major milestone, the Alliance said.
Advocates have suffered repeated setbacks with the county Board of Supervisors, who opposed adopting such a resolution at least twice, said an Alliance spokeswoman.
‘Epidemic’ Proportions
Linda S. Lloyd, vice president/programs for the foundation, a San Diego-based nonprofit group dedicated to improving local health care, applauded committee members for taking a leadership role.
“They recognize that we have an epidemic on our hands and that these programs help reduce the spread of disease, get contaminated needles off the streets and provide an effective means of referral for drug users into treatment programs,” Lloyd said.
According to the county’s Health and Human Services Agency, an estimated 50,000 San Diegans are already infected with hepatitis C, for which there is no cure.
Nearly half of all injection drug users tested at the San Diego County STD clinic were infected with hepatitis C, the agency reported.
Needle exchange combined with an educational program is an effective way to prevent the spread of such diseases, said Gary Stephany, president and CEO of the Healthcare Association of San Diego and Imperial Counties.
Personal Experience
Stephany, who provided testimony in favor of needle exchange, was diagnosed with hepatitis C in 1994.
He contracted the virus during a blood transfusion in the 1970s.
Stephany said he sought to create awareness that drugs users can spread disease to innocent people, too.
City Councilman Byron Wear, who proposed the initiative, agreed with Stephany.
Hepatitis C will be a bigger epidemic than AIDS by 2010, Wear said in an opinion piece that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune.
That’s because hepatitis C can survive up to 10 days on a discarded syringe.
“The cost for taxpayers will be enormous unless we take action now,” Wear wrote.
According to the Alliance, it costs $155,000 to treat a single AIDS-infected person for the lifetime of the disease. A liver transplant to safe the life of a hepatitis C-infected person costs between $250,000 and $300,000.
Two opponents, however, said they can’t condone drug use even it prevents disease.
San Diego police Chief David Bejarano told council members needle exchange would send a “mixed message” to children. To reconcile San Diego’s commitment to be a drug-free city and needle exchange, which promotes the use of illegal drugs, doesn’t work, he said.
He added, “The best way to keep people free of HIV and hepatitis C is to treat them in a drug treatment program.”
Contributing To The Problem
Councilman George Stevens, who opposed the resolution last week, shared Bejarano’s concerns.
“It is not right to give a needle to a drug user,” Stevens said, adding, “It’s helping them to continue with their illegal activity.”
Stephany refuted arguments that needle exchange prevents police officers from enforcing the law. If anything, needle exchange will make the jobs of police officers safer, said Wear and Stephany.
A recent study of the San Diego Police Department sponsored by UCSD and San Diego State found 30 percent of the officers reported being stuck by at least one needle on the job, according to Wear.
Similar studies in other cities found that 2 to 4 percent of officers were infected with hepatitis C, according to the Center for Disease Control.
Bejarano cited a different study.
He said out of the 10,000 injuries reported by San Diego police officers within the last two years, five were related to needle sticks.
Despite his opposition, Bejarano said he would work as “partners” with health officials if council members adopt the resolution
