Idaho Banning Syringe Services Program Is a Stab in the Back of Idahoans

Last week, the state of Idaho took a step backwards in public health. Idaho's Governor Brad Little signed HB617 into law, which repeals the ability for harm reduction organizations to operate syringe service programs (SSP). Also known as "needle exchange programs," an SSP provides a wide range of services, including "access to and disposal of sterile syringes and injection equipment, vaccination, testing, and linkage to infectious disease care and substance use treatment."

Why did Idahoan lawmakers get ride of their SSPs? They were concerned that SSPs increase drug use and opined that there was not enough evidence to show that SSPs incentivize substance abusers to seek treatment. Here is the problem with that line of thinking. According to the National Association of Counties, SSP participants are twice as likely to reduce the frequency of substance use and three times more likely to stop using substances all together. Even so, advocates never promoted SSPs for that purpose. 

The main purpose of SSPs was to provide drug abusers with a cleaner, safer alternative. This "meet them where they are at" approach is meant to reduce the spread of disease. SSPs have been shown to reduce HIV and Hepatitis C by 50 percent. SSPs have reduced syringe litter (Levine et al., 2019), which means less likelihood of being pricked or injured by a needle. In Idaho, the program collected nearly 600,000 needles, which kept them out of public places. Furthermore, SSPs are not shown to increase crime or illicit drug use. As a matter of fact, SSPs save upwards of $7.58 [in 2014 dollars] for every dollar spent (Nguyen et al., 2014). The cost savings for SSPs is quite high (Ruiz et al., 2019). If you want more information on how beneficial SSPs are, you can read this 2023 meta-analysis from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs here.

Much like we could not mask our way out of the pandemic, we cannot criminalize our way out of the opioid crisis. As a 2022 research paper from Cato Institute shows, such drug paraphernalia laws obstruct harm reduction. Criminalizing these programs will make users more likely to use dirty needles (Marotta et al., 2021) and cause a rebound in HIV cases (Zang et al., 2022). Instead of keeping those who use drugs safer, re-criminalization will decrease their likelihood to survive. Idaho's abandonment of a program clearly shown to protect those who use drugs, as well as the community as a whole, is putting its citizens at risk.