GREENFIELD — A proposed needle exchange and addiction support program took a step closer to becoming a reality in Greenfield with the Board of Health’s vote to support it Wednesday night.
The proposal will now go to Town Council. At least one councilor, At-Large Councilor Penny Ricketts, voiced support for the program.
The board’s vote came after nearly nine months of meetings with area officials and stakeholders — a slow, deliberative approach Board Chairman William Doyle said was designed to ensure the proposal didn’t run into procedural problems during approval that have complicated operations for Tapestry Health’s Holyoke program in recent months.
Proponents say a needle exchange, which the board is calling a Comprehensive Harm Reduction Program, would provide a safe place for drug users to turn in dirty needles and receive clean ones. The proposal was introduced in part as a response to reports of rising Hepatitis C infection locally, while rates in Northampton, where Tapestry also runs an exchange, have remained lower.
The goal is to reduce the spread of disease and provide another place for health workers to connect with addicts and, hopefully, get them on the road to recovery.
The proposal, often controversial elsewhere, has run into little opposition in Greenfield, drawing favorable recommendations from the town’s police and fire chiefs, top officials from Baystate Franklin Medical Center, members of the recovery community and others. A survey by the regional Opioid Task Force found widespread support for the idea. Mayor William Martin has been the only one to raise concerns about certain aspects of the program.
The vote followed one last public meeting, where experts and officials who had spoken previously were invited back to tie up loose ends.
Dawn Fukuda and Linda Goldman from the state Department of Public Health’s Bureau of Infectious Diseases addressed concerns voiced by many that having a program where drug users can obtain the equipment needed to inject drugs will only encourage more use, noting that most research has proven that’s not the case.
“Having these services, our experience is so much the opposite,” Fukuda told the board. “In many cases, the people seeking the syringes are often seeking help to stop (using drugs). Having that place where they know they’re not judged, where they’re asked what’s going on with their health, whether they’ve had a meal that day … that’s what these programs provide a door to.”
Fukuda said the end goal of a needle exchange is to eventually prevent the growth of a problem that would warrant having one in the first place.
Liz Whynott, the director of Northampton and Holyoke’s programs, spoke to the logistics and day-to-day operations of those programs. She noted that confidentiality is paramount to being able to successfully connect to their clients, but do refer many to treatment.
Dr. T. Steven Jones, a former Centers for Disease and Control official who has worked with HIV infection in injection drug users, presented findings from a series of studies that showed needle exchange programs reduce infection rates.
“The virtue of a syringe exchange is access to safe disposal, and it’s a powerful passive outreach to provide services people need, so they’ll come forth,” Jones said. “They’ll come to you so you can make connections with them and provide services.”
Needle exchanges aren’t particularly common in Massachusetts. Since legalization in 1993, Boston, Cambridge, Northampton and the Cape Cod region, Holyoke and Worcester have opened them. Holyoke’s was recently ordered to cease providing services due to procedural issues in its founding, but Tapestry Health, which operates that program, is looking in to re-opening it without state support.
There can be only 10 exchanges statewide. The average cost to run a program is between $85,000 and $257,000, based on the estimates from the Holyoke and Northampton programs, according to state Department of Public Health.