MORGANTOWN — In August 2015, Milan Puskar Health Right’s LIGHT Program began.
The acronym stands for “Living in Good Health Together,” and the program’s ultimate goal is helping people get treatment for addiction. Along the way, the focus is on harm reduction.
Among the dozen or so services offered through LIGHT is a clean needle program, which hands out thousands of syringes every year according to Executive Director Laura Jones.
Of those, Jones said, about a third return to the clinic in containers provided to clients.
Some end up as potentially dangerous litter.
“Almost two-thirds, we hope, are properly disposed of. A very small number are found, comparatively to the number we give out, in trash cans and in local areas. Typically in areas where people are experiencing homelessness. Or they’re found by police or city workers,” she explained to Morgantown City Council.
To help reduce the number of discarded needles, Health Right wants to place sharps containers in areas where used syringes tend to accumulate.
She said Health Right has the funds for one large kiosk — like the ones located in front of the Kanawha-Charleston and Cabell-Huntington health departments — or three smaller units.
Health Right would work with the city to find appropriate locations where the units could be adequately secured. She said Health Right is also committed to emptying the containers and disposing of the syringes.
Jones said she could foresee the areas beneath the South High Street and Walnut Street bridges as potential locations.
Mayor Bill Kawecki said he feared providing the boxes would attract more people to these locations, explaining, “It’s not the box I object to. It’s the idea of enabling.”
Jones disagreed.
“It’s already happening there. We don’t have to attract them under the bridge. It’s already happening, and as I said before, it’s better than no option,” she said, explaining that over the last decade the percentage of West Virginians shooting up has jumped from 2.3% to 8%.
She said IV drug users need several clean needles daily and aren’t likely to carry them around for fear of being arrested due to the drug residue in a used syringe, so they’re left behind.
The containers would be in conjunction to volunteer clean-up efforts coordinated by Dani Ludwig, a peer recovery coach at Health Right.
While council moved the issue forward for future consideration, Councilor Jenny Selin said it’s hard to admit Morgantown is at the point where public sharps containers are needed.
“But that’s where we are,” Jones said. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly where we are, and it’s a long road out of there.”
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