Addiction-stricken community struggles to keep a syringe program going after Trump's order
Inside a storage room at the Clark County Health Department are boxes with taped-on signs reading, “DO NOT USE.” They contain cookers and sterile water that people use to shoot up drugs.
The supplies, which came from the state and were paid for with federal money, were for a program where drug users exchange dirty needles for clean ones, part of a strategy known as harm reduction. But under a July executive order from President Donald Trump, federal substance abuse grants can’t pay for supplies such as cookers and tourniquets that it says “only facilitate illegal drug use.” Needles already couldn’t be purchased with federal money.
In some places, the order is galvanizing support for syringe exchange programs, which decades of research show are extremely effective at preventing disease among intravenous drug users and getting them into treatment.
In others, it’s fueling opposition that threatens the programs’ existence.
Republican-led Indiana passed a law allowing exchanges a decade ago after the tiny city of Austin became the epicenter of the worst drug-fueled HIV outbreak in U.S. history. Unless lawmakers extend it, that law is scheduled to sunset next year, and the number of exchanges has been dwindling. State officials told remaining programs to comply with Trump’s order — and even to discard federally funded supplies such as cookers and tourniquets.
https://apnews.com/article/needle-exchanges-iv-drugs-trump-indiana-fabf7c91f26547c7de3c8d3fdc3bfc87
Because God forbid drug addicts should get clean needles etc. They should all die of hepatitis, AIDS, sepsis, etc., according to Shitler.
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