Needle Exchange Program: A Case Study

Quetext
About Widget FAQ Contact
Franks, Eric 7/27/16 WST 320 Gender, Drugs and Alcohol Arizona State University Professor Herson Putting People first: Substance use treatment and public health How do we put people first when dealing with substance use and treatment, how does this effect public health, and where do people who use fit into these as it relates to gender? How do these converge into a public health option? One such treatment option to mitigate public health risks is a Needle Exchange Program, also referred to as a Needle Syringe ¬¬¬¬¬Program (NSP). What is the current medical approach to this health option? It is not a uniform practice in the US, this being, a directly federally funded and nationally implemented option, and is
Apart from providing safe spaces to inject, and clean equipment to utilize their drug, there has been a shift in public health accessibility of NSP’s, this is to state that the institutional attitude towards people who are injecting drug users or IDU’s, is changing, for example in Lexington-Fayette County Kentucky, people who utilize the established program can remain anonymous, and in exchange for using clean needles, the user faces no criminal penalties. (Needle Exchange Program , 2016) According to North American Syringe Exchange Network, as of May of 2015, “there are currently 228 of these programs in 35 states, The District of Columbia, The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the Indian nations.” (Directory-Facts, 2015) To date, there is still no direct federal funding, according to research done by Society for the Study of Addiction, it found some major problems with existing NEP’s, which they call, operational issues, “The most common problem was ‘lack of funding/lack of resources’, reported by 56% of the programs. Staff shortages (47%)… Despite these problems, the two guiding principles of utilizing secondary exchange to increase the diffusion of sterile syringes in the IDU population and utilizing the programs to provide multiple other health and social services have provided an excellent basis for the development of SEPs in the country.” (Des Jarlais, 2009) So who is most likely to
The shifting of Federal funding policy is a step towards a more cohesive practice of harm reduction, which will benefit both IDU’s health options, as well as relieve the strain on public health in general. References Common Sense for Drug Policy. (1999). The EFFECTIVE NATIONAL DRUG CONTROL STRATEGY 1999. Retrieved from Common Sense for Drug Policy: http://www.csdp.org/edcs/page19.htm Des Jarlais, D. C. (2009). Doing harm reduction better: syringe exchange in the United States. Addiction, 104(9), 1441-1446. Retrieved from https://nasen.org/site_media/files/nasec2010/ddj_2009DoingHarmReductionBetterSEPintheUS.pdf Exchange, N. A. (2015, May). Directory. Retrieved from North American Syringe Exchange: https://nasen.org/ Needle Exchange Program . (2016). Retrieved from Lexington-Fayette County Health Department: http://www.lexingtonhealthdepartment.org/ProgramsServices/NeedleExchangeProgram/tabid/263/Default.aspx Ottawa. (2016, July 28). Retrieved from Site Needle & Syringe Program: http://ottawa.ca/en/residents/public-health/healthy-living/clean-needle-syringe-program Rogers,