Needle exchange program resumes in Pittsburgh
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Pittsburgh's needle exchange program is running again after the city suspended it last year after collection problems.
Many of the homeless encampments have become dens of open-air drug sales and drug use. But while it's shutting down a camp on Grant Street for that reason, the city continues to provide syringes to those who live in others but rejects criticism it's aiding and abetting the drug problems there.
"People will use drugs, and our goal is to ensure that people are safe while doing that so we don't have a public health crisis," Camila Alarcon-Chelecki of Pittsburgh Public Safety.
The city and the organization Prevention Point Pittsburgh say they distribute syringes to intravenous drug users to prevent the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV infections. But have they created a public health crisis of its own?
Take a walk through the encampments on the Three Rivers Heritage Trail and you'll see dozens of used and discarded syringes, posing health and safety hazards to runners and walkers as safe collection efforts appear to be falling short.
"I just see more needles being thrown out in the ground and by the river," Nick Santillo of the North Side said. "The city says it's doing something but clearly it's not."
The city suspended its distribution of needles last year amid criticism it did not have proper collection procedures in place. But the program has resumed that program following Prevention Point's lead, now providing individual sharp disposal boxes to anyone who gets a clean syringe.
"You give them a sharps container and it's on them to use it?" KDKA-TV's Andy Sheehan asked.
"That's correct," Aaron Arnold of Prevention Point Pittsburgh. "As with all of our supplies, it's incumbent on the participants to use them."
Prevention Point Pittsburgh says it distributed 2 million clean syringes last year alone. While undoubtedly not all of those used syringes were safely disposed of, both Prevention Point Pittsburgh and the city say they've taken all steps to protect the public but are not the only ones distributing needles.
"We are doing the best we can for the supplies that we are providing. But there are different organizations that are providing syringes that we don't know how many they are providing," Alarcon-Chelecki said.
The city and Prevention Point Pittsburgh said they try to steer drug users into recovery programs and drugs like methadone and Suboxone to try to ween them off heroin. But they say they have no control over other organizations that simply make the syringes available.
"I don't have control of that. I don't know how to account for those numbers. But anytime we work with city council when constituents complain, we'll always do a clean up of syringes," Alarcon-Chelecki said.
The situation is better than it was a year ago, but the problem hasn't gone away, calling for the reigning in unauthorized groups distributing needles and tighter controls all around.
