D.C. Harm Reduction Programs Get Cash Injection

Washington, D.C. officials announced Jan. 2 that $650,000 in public money would be dedicated to fund anonymous needle exchange programs in the city, reports the Washington Post. The news comes after Congressional passage of am omnibus appropriations bill that finally eases a 10-year-old law barring the city from using public money to fund any such drug-related program. (The ban, authored by then Georgia Republican Rep. Bob Barr – and known as the Barr Amendment – was prompted by the passage, with 70% of the vote, of a medi-pot initiative there. Screw that, said Barr, whose amendment sought to strip the city of all funding if officials attempted to “enact or carry out” any local initiative to legalize or reduce penalties associated with drug possession or use.)

The District has one of the highest rates of HIV and AIDS in the country: a recent study estimated that one in 20 residents has HIV, and that one in 50 has AIDS, the daily reports. Under the Barr amendment, harm reduction programs like anonymous needle exchange – which allows intravenous drug users to exchange dirty needles for clean ones – relied on private funding. Now, with the infusion of public money, the city’s existing program, operated by the group Prevention Works!, will get an extra $300,000 in funds, doubling its annual budget, to help combat the spread of infectious disease. The remaining $350,000 in funding will be used to develop additional harm reduction programs, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty said. “This program goes to best practices to combat one of our greatest health problems,” he said.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, harm reduction advocates – and foes – are still waiting on an opinion from the office of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to determine whether the pilot needle-exchange program created by lawmakers last year can finally be implemented. State lawmakers cleared the way for the Bexar Co. pilot program during last year’s regular session, exempting anonymous needle exchange from prosecution under the state’s paraphernalia laws. But Bexar Co. District Attorney Susan Reed, apparently afraid of needles, threw a wrench in the works, thwarting progress by opining that the law doesn’t provide immunity from prosecution for program administrators and participants. Under Reed’s Wacky World of Criminal Law the plain language of the new law doesn’t mean what it says it means: “I don’t think they have any kind of criminal immunity,” Reed told the San Antonio Express-News in August. “That’s the bottom line.” Not so much, says state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, who penned the 20-page opinion request to Abbott on Sept. 26, explaining in detail the intent behind and plain meaning of the new law. (So much ado, eh?) Abbott’s decision is expected this spring.