Santa Cruz California started a program to provide free needles to drug users to discourage them from sharing needles. It hasn’t worked out very well.
Santa Cruz County discarded needle count pushes 12,000
SANTA CRUZ – In the nearly four years that the community group Take Back Santa Cruz formed its Needles Solutions Team, volunteers have recorded finding 11,745 used hypodermic needles that were improperly disposed throughout Santa Cruz County — averaging 261 found per month.
Between August and September this year, the group marked a significant spike in found needles, up to 423, but for the right reasons, said Take Back Santa Cruz founder Analicia Cube.
Santa Cruz city officials were involved with cleanups on the San Lorenzo River’s west levee and the Sycamore Grove area off Highway 9 and reported found needles, according to Cube.
Needle finds quick facts
• On Sept. 8: Take Back Santa Cruz self-reporting tool shows a mother reporting that child found a syringe in yard on San Lorenzo Boulevard, mistook it for a thermometer and put it in her mouth. She was not pricked by the needle.
• According to a 2008 Paediatrics and Child Health Journal article, the risk for children pricked by a needle of contracting a bloodborne virus is very low.
• On Aug. 23 on Lee Street, a resident found about 40 needles in an encampment next to her yard.
• General needle “hot spots” include the San Lorenzo River levee, Sycamore Grove, Depot Park, Cowell Beach, Neary Lagoon and Arana Gulch.
http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/09/20/web-needles-0921/
Not the same as a "safe injection" site.
It hasn’t worked out very well.
That doesn't follow from your article, which doesn't say discarded needles have increased since the program began.
Between August and September this year, the group marked a significant spike in found needles, up to 423, but for the right reasons, said Take Back Santa Cruz founder Analicia Cube.
Santa Cruz city officials were involved with cleanups on the San Lorenzo River’s west levee and the Sycamore Grove area off Highway 9 and reported found needles, according to Cube.
In summary, they found more needles because they looked in the right place.
Also from your article:
"The county’s Syringe Services Program, requires at least a 1 to 1 exchange of an old needle for new, to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases associated with injection drug use and to address improperly discarded syringes. In its June 2016 report the county Health Services Agency reported dispensing 25,355 syringes in the previous year, and collecting 33,599."