SANTA CRUZ—Five months after pulling their application to run a mobile needle distribution system, the Harm Reduction Coalition of Santa Cruz County is back with a revamped plan.
Under the new proposal, the HRCSCC would offer home delivery of syringes and injection supplies and phone-based mobile services.
The organization announced its plans during a press conference in Santa Cruz on Wednesday.
The organization also offers a mobile location at the corner of Coral and Limekiln streets in Santa Cruz.
HRCSCC also hopes to distribute the overdose-reversing drug Naloxone.
In addition, the group stresses that it will not dispense supplies in parks or public spaces.
The California Department of Public Health is currently considering the proposal. If it passes muster, the public will then have 45 days to weigh in on the plan before final approval.
According to HRCSCC organizer Denise Elerick, the organization will also renew its focus on syringe disposal.
That’s been a point of contention among opponents of syringe distribution programs, who equate them with dirty needles found on beaches, in parks and other public locations.
But Elerick said that the opposite is true. She points to public health research, which she said shows that community-based syringe service programs are in fact effective at reducing the amount of syringe litter found on the ground.
Elerick says that programs like hers remove more used syringes from the community than the clean ones they give out.
HRCSCC collected and properly disposed of more than 100,000 in the past year, she said.
“This new program will continue that trend,” Elerick said. “We have consistently been called a needle giveaway and been accused of increasing needle litter, despite the fact that programs like the one we are proposing are the single best way to remove used syringes from this community. It makes sense why people think that we are increasing needle litter, but they have it backward.”
Elerick stressed that her work is meant to complement that being done by the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency.
“It was never intended to be the only service for this work,” she said.
The trouble, she said, is the limited hours offered by that agency. In addition, the one-to-one exchange model offered by the county does not decrease syringe litter, or help slow needle borne diseases, she said.
HRCSCC is a volunteer-run community organization that exists under fiscal sponsorship with the North American Syringe Exchange Network.
