Opioid overdose deaths in Orange County are rising sharply, with annual deaths almost tripling within the 4 years ending in 2021. It’s no coincidence that for a lot of that point, and once more at present, Orange County is probably the most populous county within the nation with no needle change program.
This system that native officers shut down final yr, the Hurt Discount Institute in Santa Ana, utilized to the state in January for permission to reopen as a home-delivery syringe service program. Town stated in Might that it “vehemently objects” to the appliance, citing basic public well being considerations.
The general public’s understanding of syringe service packages, and habit itself, dangerously lags behind the science, usually with deadly outcomes. Analysis in public well being and hurt discount has lengthy proven that these packages are obligatory for an efficient response to the opioid epidemic and associated HIV and hepatitis C transmission dangers.
These healthcare suppliers are sometimes known as needle exchanges however actually accomplish that way more. They stop overdose deaths by supplying fentanyl take a look at strips, overdose recognition training, overdose reversal drugs, and entry to opioid habit drugs. As well as, they supply HIV, hepatitis and COVID-19 testing, entry to sterile syringes, disposal of used syringes, and connections to medical suppliers and counseling.
In an age of surging fentanyl overdoses, which killed extra individuals in 2021 than weapons and vehicles wrecks mixed, the companies at these facilities save lives and defend communities. And but elected officers in Orange County have opposed these packages regardless of a spiking physique rely and a long time of medical analysis that present they’re protected and save lives. Research point out almost each measure of well being worsens when these packages usually are not out there to individuals who use medication.
Regardless of the endorsement of syringe service packages by the American Medical Assn., the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, and the Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse, native residents and elected officers usually oppose these packages due to misconceptions about these well being companies and stigma towards the individuals being served.
In 2018, such opposition shut down Orange County’s solely needle change. The Hurt Discount Institute emerged as a successor however confronted comparable resistance and was pressured to shut in January 2022.
At a public listening to in September 2020, Santa Ana’s metropolis legal professional had instructed that after banning needle exchanges, town might make the operation of medical places of work or pharmacies that distribute syringes a zoning difficulty. She stated town might take different enforcement motion towards them, together with “ensuring they do have the right licenses.” Two weeks later, town began issuing zoning violations towards the medical workplace the place the Hurt Discount Institute operated.
Now that the institute is making an attempt once more to serve sufferers, town will face some authorized hurdles if it continues making an attempt to dam care.
Drug habit is a incapacity protected by the Individuals With Disabilities Act and Part 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Public entities, similar to native governments, jails and hospitals, due to this fact can not deny well being companies or companies offered in reference to drug rehabilitation to individuals who use unlawful medication and are in any other case entitled to such companies. Because of this until there’s goal proof {that a} program and its purchasers pose a danger of direct hurt to others (not themselves), federal civil rights legal guidelines defend these healthcare suppliers and their sufferers from discriminatory zoning and security guidelines. Courts are clear that generalizations about public security dangers won’t suffice.
Guaranteeing that folks with drug addictions obtain the well being companies they’re entitled to below the nation’s civil rights legal guidelines is a prime precedence of the Division of Justice. Likewise, one of many key targets in the White Home’s 2022 Nationwide Drug Management Technique is to extend the variety of syringe packages throughout the nation, particularly in counties with none.
Orange County’s elected leaders ought to hearken to the medical specialists and never place stigma and stereotypes over science. They need to assist opening syringe packages, and when residents object, they need to defend the packages’ proper to exist. Doing so will save lives and defend neighborhoods — and it’s the regulation.
David Howard Sinkman is a senior affiliate on the O’Neill Institute at Georgetown College Regulation Heart. He served as a federal prosecutor within the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Japanese District of Louisiana, the place he was the workplace’s opioid coordinator and civil rights coordinator. Ricky Bluthenthal is a professor of inhabitants and public well being sciences and the affiliate dean for social justice within the Keck College of Medication at USC. He co-founded the Oakland syringe service program within the Nineteen Nineties.
