Needle exchange report due

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

During the first six months of 2007, 30,443 clean needles were distributed through syringe exchange programs in Santa Barbara County, while 33,448 dirty needles were disposed of.
These and other statistics will be on display at tomorrow’s Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisor’s meeting, where a report on the Needle Exchange and Education Program, which is provided by the Pacific Pride Foundation Inc., will be presented.
The county first authorized the Pacific Pride Foundation to begin the needle exchange program on Aug. 1, 2006, according to the supervisor’s agenda letter. No county funds are used to subsidize the program.


The annual report by the Pacific Pride Foundation and the County’s Public Health Department is mandated by State Assembly Bill 547, which was passed in 2005 and made it possible for cities and counties to provide needle exchange programs without declaring a health emergency every two weeks, which was mandated prior to the bill.
Of the 30,443 clean needles distributed in the county between January and June of this year, 60 percent were provided by the Foundation’s Santa Barbara office, which is located at 126 E. Haley St. The other 40 percent were distributed at the Santa Maria office at 819 W. Church St.
The more than 30,000 needles were distributed to 629 people, 79 of whom repeatedly utilized the needle exchange program, the agenda letter says.
Though the number of needles seems high for the amount of people utilizing the service, it translates to an annual average of 48 needles per person. Month by month, according to these numbers, each person would be using eight needles.
Mike Foley, executive director at Casa Esperanza, a homeless shelter on Santa Barbara’s east side, said needle exchange programs are examples of a “harm reduction model.”
“People are going to use and shoot up drugs and better they be safe and not die of HIV or other diseases that can be passed through needles,” Foley said of the model.
Disease prevention is one of the tenants of the program.
Other statistics in the report show 25 to 30 percent of those who utilized the needle exchange are infected with Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B or HIV, most of which are in treatment or were referred for treatment.
The report shows that 93 percent of clients indicated they were in a heterosexual relationship, but only 9.3 percent reported using a condom. Throughout the course of the program, 46.8 percent of clients said they used only clean needles, but in the past 12 months, that number increased to 69.3 percent.
Dan Reid, program administrator of the Santa Barbara County HIV/AIDS Services Program, and other agencies, have been charged with identifying additional sites to administer similar programs, the agenda letter says.
According to the agenda letter, agencies such as homeless shelters and substance abuse treatment programs were asked about their interest in providing needle exchange programs.
“Substance abuse treatment agencies indicated that a needle exchange program at the program site would be problematic as it might tempt clients engaged in substance abuse treatment programs to relapse,” the report says.
Casa Esperanza was one organization that expressed interest, but due to its conditional use permit, could not administer such a program.
Foley said Casa Esperanza’s mission is not to provide clean needles, but to help the homeless. He pointed out that not all of the people utilizing the needle exchange are homeless and that not all homeless people use intravenous drugs.
“The homeless shelter works to help everybody not just people with drug and alcohol problems,” Foley said.
However, Foley did say if an independent, community based organization wanted to discuss providing a needle exchange at Casa Esperanza, he would be open to it. The agenda letter says the Foundation is unable to fund another center at the time.
Foley suggested if anything were to change with the needle exchange program, he would like to see outreach workers hit the streets and deliver the clean needles to at-risk people.
“I think it would be better as a street outreach program,” Foley said. “It seems to me it would be feasible to do that. That’s what they do in other cities.”
According to the California State Assembly’s web site, 1,800 Californians die of AIDS each year, while 1,500 new infections occur as a result of syringe sharing among intravenous drug users, while another 5,000 are infected with Hepatitis C.
The Board of Supervisors meeting begins at 9 a.m. tomorrow and will be held at the County Administration Building’s fourth floor board hearing room.