The health care experts tell us that addiction should be considered a disease and be treated as such — an attitude and approach relatively new but welcome in the nation’s current painkiller and heroin drug abuse epidemic.

Soon, Greenfield’s political leaders will be asked to take a similarly enlightened and practical view toward another previously contentious issue tied to illicit drug use — providing free IV needles for drug addicts.

Needle exchange programs, like ones in Northampton and Holyoke, swap dirty needles for clean ones, which presumably reduces the spread of blood-borne diseases like HIV-AIDS and Hepatitis C that come with sharing used needles.

In the past some have argued providing free needles simply enables addicts.

But most experts today say that’s simply not the case. Experts say health records show that areas with exchanges do not see increases in drug use, because the people who turn up at the programs are typically the ones who’ve become concerned about their habit and want to stop.

Proponents of needle exchange in Greenfield contend that the program doesn’t encourage drug use but does at the very least reduce the spread of Hep C and AIDS among addicts and others. The state statistics on Hepatitis C cases are showing a rise in areas without needle exchanges, including Franklin and Berkshire counties, but a plateau where exchanges exist, Hampshire and Hampden counties.

Rates of new hepatitis C infection have spiked 60 percent in Franklin County since 2011, a Recorder review of state data shows.

That’s the most drastic increase of any county in the state during that time frame. Berkshire County saw the second biggest increase at 28 percent.

A needle exchange could flatten those trend lines.

But there’s a further, longer-term benefit for the central scourge of opioid addiction itself.

Prescription painkiller and heroin abuse claimed the lives of an estimated 1,500 Massachusetts residents in 2015 alone, and experts in the field see a non-judgmental needle exchange as another way to change the trajectory of addiction and drug deaths.

Liz Whynott, the director of the Northampton needle exchange, said studies have shown that people who use needle exchanges are five times more likely to enter addiction treatment at some point.

Proponents say a needle exchange, which they like to call a “comprehensive harm reduction program,” would provide a safe place for addicts to connect with health workers who can get them on the road to recovery.

“These programs aren’t just, give them a syringe and say ‘Have a nice day,’” says H. Dawn Fukuda, the director of the state Bureau of Infectious Diseases’ HIV/AIDS office. “They provide a space where the most vulnerable, acute users can say ‘I need help’ and get what they need, whether that’s a referral (to treatment), a syringe, mental health services, or domestic violence services.”

Fukuda said evidence has shown that people who turn up at the programs are typically the ones who’ve become concerned about their habit and want to stop, she said.

Massachusetts legalized needle exchanges in 1993 and state government currently funds six of the programs statewide, in Cambridge, Provincetown, Brockton, Worcester, Holyoke and Northampton. The programs serve about 7,200 people statewide.

Soon, the Greenfeld Town Council will be asked to authorize a program here — something proposed by the town’s Board of Health and supported by the regional Opioid Task Force, Baystate Franklin Medical Center and others, including the local addiction recovery community.

Add The Recorder to that list.