Needle exchange article from this weekend > Rexroad.com

This article in the SF Chronicle came out over the weekend. It could not have come at a better time for my point of view.

We will certainly be discussing this tomorrow when this issue comes up on the Board agenda.

Favorite parts --

When The Chronicle's C.W. Nevius visited some of the park's homeless encampments the other day, he found plenty of new and used needles. It's a problem that's been building for a while: Recreation and Park Department spokeswoman Rose Dennis estimated that "on any day we pull between 100 and 200 needles out of the park . . . because that's where people use them."

The problem is getting back the needles from users once they take off to cloud nine.
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who has picked up needles in the park and who co-authored the bill allowing them to be sold over the counter, said it's up to the city to keep the parks syringe-free -- either through more cleanups or tighter controls to make sure needles are returned.
"We need to come up with a better system,'' Mirkarimi said.
After we called City Hall and started asking questions, Newsom agreed.
"You're raising a legitimate question about the program, no doubt about it," Newsom said, adding that he's asked Health Director Mitch Katz to find a better way to collect the used syringes.
"Don't get me wrong, I still support the program," Newsom said. "But so for we've been all about distribution. We need to start looking at collection as well."

THE SITUATION AT GOLDEN GATE PARK
Sunday in the park -- with needles
Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Sunday, July 29, 2007

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They tell us he was steaming, but San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom shouldn't have been too surprised when The Chronicle reported that Golden Gate Park was littered with used drug syringes.
After all, his own Public Health Department spent $800,000 last year to help hand out some 2 million syringes to drug users under the city's needle exchange program -- sometimes 20 at a time.
Although Health Department officials say 2 million needles were returned, the fact is they don't count them and can only estimate how many are coming back.
And from the looks of things, a lot of them aren't.
Mary Howe, director of the Homeless Youth Alliance, which operates a needle exchange program near the park with the help of city money, said her group gets back only about 70 percent of the needles it distributes.
"People lose them or the police take them,'' Howe said.
And it's not just the city handing out needles.
Under legislation passed in 2005 by the same Board of Supervisors whose members now decry the needle problem, anyone over 18 can walk into a Walgreens or Rite Aid and buy as many as 10 needles -- no questions asked.
When The Chronicle's C.W. Nevius visited some of the park's homeless encampments the other day, he found plenty of new and used needles. It's a problem that's been building for a while: Recreation and Park Department spokeswoman Rose Dennis estimated that "on any day we pull between 100 and 200 needles out of the park . . . because that's where people use them."
The logic behind making needles easy to obtain is that the more people share syringes, the more likely they are to contract HIV and other blood-borne diseases.
The problem is getting back the needles from users once they take off to cloud nine.
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, who has picked up needles in the park and who co-authored the bill allowing them to be sold over the counter, said it's up to the city to keep the parks syringe-free -- either through more cleanups or tighter controls to make sure needles are returned.
"We need to come up with a better system,'' Mirkarimi said.
After we called City Hall and started asking questions, Newsom agreed.
"You're raising a legitimate question about the program, no doubt about it," Newsom said, adding that he's asked Health Director Mitch Katz to find a better way to collect the used syringes.
"Don't get me wrong, I still support the program," Newsom said. "But so for we've been all about distribution. We need to start looking at collection as well."
Katz said one idea would be to come up with more places near the park where people could turn in needles. But he noted that some people with used needles don't have much civic consciousness -- especially when they're high.
Another idea, this one from the Homeless Youth Coalition, is to put biohazard boxes in the park where users could drop their needles.
But as park spokeswoman Dennis noted, "Many people are completely against that route. The questions are: 'Do we really want them in the bathrooms? What if a kid popped one open or they were vandalized?' "
Plus, she added, "Some people think it sends the wrong message."
How's that for irony?

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