On Tuesday the Sanford City Council is expected to discuss a “public health crisis” caused by a large number of contaminated hypodermic needles littered in the city as the result of a state licensed syringe distribution program.
In early 2020, the Maine CDC licensed the Brunswick-based nonprofit Maine Access Points to operate a Syringe Services Program (SSP) in the City of Sanford without notifying city officials, according to a memo from City Manager Steven Buck.
[RELATED: Sanford Suspends Syringe Exchange Program, Cleans Homeless Encampment…]
Buck wrote that Maine Access Points operated the syringe exchange remotely out of a vehicle near Heritage Crossing, the site of a large abandoned mill complex, and handed out needles in boxes of 100 to program enrollees multiple times per week.
“Enrollees were directly observed shooting up in close proximity to the Exchange Program, many who subsequently identified as Homeless,” Buck wrote.
During a cleanup of a homeless encampment at Heritage Crossing this June, Buck says the city removed 206 cubic yards of waste, including three 20-gallon containers filled with contaminated syringes.
“At this singular Encampment, occupied for approximately 1 year, the volume of syringes collected (separate from the contained waste) was approximately 110 gallons of medical sharps, syringes,” Buck wrote.
The needle programs are designed as a “harm reduction” initiative aimed at reducing the spread of blood-borne pathogens such as HIV and hepatitis by providing active drug users with sterile syringes.
Although, prior to COVID-19, the needle programs operated in Maine as needle “exchanges,” wherein a drug user must return one used needle to a central hub in order to receive a clean needle, Maine suspended the exchange requirement in March 2020.
On March 30, 2020, Gov. Janet Mills (D) issued an executive order that “temporarily suspended” the “1-to-1 needle exchange limit.” However, the rules concerning needle exchanges have never been returned to the 1:1 limit.
Rather than needle exchange programs, Maine Access Points and similar taxpayer-funded non-profits have since functioned as needle distribution programs, with no incentive for drug users to return dirty needles to a safe location.
The distribution program in Sanford is one of 13 such sites across the state currently licensed by the Maine CDC to distribute sterile syringes. Under current Maine CDC rules, the exchange programs may provide a person with up to 100 syringes without that person turning in a single used syringe.
Per the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (Maine DHHS) 2023 annual SSP report, syringe exchanges statewide distributed a total of 3,676,315 needles in 2023 — roughly 500,000 more needles than they collected.
In Sanford, Maine Access Points distributed roughly 460,000 syringes in 2023, about 20,000 more than they collected, per the City Manger’s memo. About 15,000 of those syringes were collected during the cleanup of the Heritage Crossing homeless encampment.
[RELATED: ‘Please carry Narcan, do not use alone’: Sanford PD Responds to Three Overdoses in 24 Hours…]
“The City observed large quantities of inappropriately discarded syringes littering our parks, trails, sports complexes, sidewalks, stairwells, and a host of other areas,” Buck wrote in his memo to the City Council. “City Staff could not, cannot, keep pace with picking up the discarded (contaminated) syringes.”
“It was noted then, and continues to be now, that the dangers of the [inappropriately] discarded syringes creates a Public Health [Hazard] Exposure to the vary blood born pathogens the Programs seek to protect yet not for unsuspecting individuals when in public parks, recreation facilities or even just walking down the sidewalks,” he wrote.
Buck added that the city’s Parks Department continues to collect used syringes every day, including with a vacuum truck “to clean out thousands of syringes from catch basins within the Downtown in popular areas,” to prevent them from entering storm drains which discharge to the Mousam River.
[RELATED: Sanford To Close Homeless Encampment Due to Excrement Polluting Mousam River…]
The Sanford City Manager claimed that city officials have met multiple times with the Maine CDC Director and representatives from Maine DHHS and the Attorney General’s Office to request recognition of the “public health hazard” caused by the discarded syringes, but that the state agencies have so far failed to do so.
“[T]he Maine CDC has offered no viable solution to address the City’s concerns of Public Health Exposure to inappropriately discarded syringes,” Buck wrote.
As a response to the public health crisis, Buck states that the city is seeking a legislative amendment to the syringe exchange program to, at a minimum, restore a strict 1:1 exchange ratio.
Buck will be presenting his memo to the Sanford City Council during their meeting this Tuesday, and the Council is expected to discuss the syringe exchange program’s impact on Sanford residents and to consider what actions may be taken to address the situation at both the city and state level.
syringe services program…. making drugs easier to do with your tax dollars! atleast i wont get accidently poked with the boofing kits, (tax funded aswell).
Easy fix, dispersal of medical equipment within city limits require city approval. Approval based on requirement by medical doctor and prescription. City law enforcement to insure adherence to code. There san-a-ford I fixed it for you, no excuses.
Station a police car and have the office give tickets for littering
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How dumb are these city councilors? Is Sanford taking tips from the idiots in Portland now? Why on the lords green earth are you giving these scum needles? You shoudl be arresting them, not incentivizing them. I thought the people of Maine had more brains than this!!!