Taking a step towards providing critical harm reduction services to the thousands of Mainers who struggle with opioid use, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Wednesday voted to advance a bill that would help fund syringe exchange programs across the state.
Members of the legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to pass LD 1689, which would provide public funding for a network of hypodermic needle exchange sites that could also provide testing for diseases often transmitted by needles, such as HIV, AIDS, and hepatitis C. It also allotted $1.7 million to help fund the program.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Linda Sanborn (D-district 30), is among the recommendations of the Maine Coalition for Sensible Drug Policy. As one committee member put it during the work session Wednesday, expanding access to clean needles is an urgent need for the state, which is grappling with an opioid epidemic as well as rates of hepatitis C that in 2015 were four times the national average.
During the May 13th public hearing, coalition representative and executive director of the Health Equity Alliance Kenney Miller highlighted the importance of such centers for not only preventing the spread of disease but for also providing a “critical means of ushering people towards recovery,”
“The value of these brief interactions cannot be understated,” said Miller. “Because each one of these conversations is an opportunity for us to connect with them in an authentic way. An opportunity to express care, concern and respect. And an opportunity to offer resources and help guide them towards treatment and recovery.”
During the work session Wednesday, Gordon Smith, Governor Janet Mill’s director of opioid response, told the committee that the Governor supports the expansion of needle exchanges, adding that the need is “quite acute in Lewison, Aroostook County, York County…and probably in the midcoast.”
Smith said that Mills’ primary objection were provisions that altered some criminal penalties associated with needle possession, saying that while their office does “favor some reduction in some of the penalties associated with some of these codes,” those decisions should be made by the criminal justice committee. Those sections were removed before the committee vote.
Last year, the legislature overrode a veto by former Governor Paul LePage to provide $75,000 in funding for needle exchange programs. Though a notable victory for harm-reduction advocates, the amount was a “drop in the bucket,” as Miller told the committee, “hardly enough to support Maine’s existing syringe exchange services, much less fill expensive gaps in these services.”
LD 1689 now advances to a vote before the full Senate and House.
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