Last week, Kingwood City Council declined to give Health Right a letter of support to operate a harm reduction and needle exchange program within the town’s limits. At that meeting, Councilman Josh Fields asked, “How does this program make Kingwood a better place to raise a family?”
We understand he was primarily referring to complaints about used needles found in parks and yards. But his comment hits at something deeper: An inability — or perhaps an outright refusal — to see addicts as people.
As such, we’d like to remind Councilman Fields that every person with substance use disorder is someone’s family. And harm reduction programs help them stay alive long enough to accept treatment and once again become the person their family and friends know and love.
Intravenous drug use will not stop in the absence of Health Right’s harm reduction program. But there is likely to be even more dirty needles floating around the community without the needle exchange, as well as a spike in blood-transmitted diseases like HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Kingwood would be smart to learn from Charleston’s mistakes. Kanawha County saw an HIV outbreak a few years after Charleston closed its needle exchange program 2018. By 2020, the county had 37 cases HIV linked to reused syringes; in 2019, the entirety of New York City only had 36 new cases.
The one-for-one needle exchange and requirement for a photo ID are not considered best practices for preventing the spread of disease among intravenous drug users. However, it is better than having nothing at all.
In addition to preventing disease, harm reduction programs play an important role in getting people with substance use disorder the treatment they need. Every time someone comes to the program for testing or for clean needles, they are required to answer a series of questions. One of those questions is, “Are you ready to seek treatment?”
Someone may come in 100 times and say no, they are not ready to get clean. But the day they come in and say yes, they are ready, coordinators at the harm reduction program jump into action to help them receive treatment.
Every educational pamphlet, every HIV test, every clean syringe, every sympathetic ear Health Right provides is designed to keep that person alive long enough to reach the day they come in and say, “I am ready.”
This week, Preston County Commission gave Health Right its support. This means the program can operate throughout the county’s unincorporated areas, though it still needs permission to work inside individual municipalities.
Though somewhat hesitant — after all, it can seem counterintuitive to give someone clean needles as a way to encourage them to stop using — commissioners realized that Health Right’s harm reduction and needle exchange program does good work. Because in addition to the health care services it provides, it also helps with Medicaid applications, SNAP benefits, HUD paperwork and more.
Laura Jones, who spoke to the commission and Kingwood Council on behalf of Health Right, offered to provide sharps disposal boxes — of which the commission requested several, in addition to floating the possibility of a mobile program.
Kingwood would be smart to follow the commission’s lead.
