Sanford city officials and members of the city council were in agreement during their Tuesday meeting on the need to reform the syringe distribution program which has resulted in a “public health crisis” due to the large number of contaminated hypodermics improperly discarded throughout the city.
Syringe Service Programs (SSPS) are authorized by the Maine CDC and 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.
The syringe exchange program in Sanford, run by the nonprofit organization Maine Access Points (MAP), is one of 13 such sites across the state currently licensed by the Maine CDC to distribute sterile hypodermic needles to drug users.
MAP received nearly $1M in government grants in 2022, according to its most recent tax filing.
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.
“We have a public health hazard with these scattered needles in our state, in our community, for which I cannot get recognition at the state level — especially from the CDC,” said Sanford City Manager Steven Buck in his presentation to the city council on Tuesday.
“We need to address both of these public health hazards, blood-borne pathogens, and contaminated needles, but contaminated needles that are left inappropriately disposed of,” Buck said. “
In Sanford, MAP distributed roughly 460,000 syringes in 2023, about 20,000 more than they collected, per a memo from the City Manager.
Buck described how the syringe exchange operated 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.
About 15,000 of those syringes were collected during the city’s cleanup of the Heritage Crossing homeless encampment in June.
[RELATED: Sanford To Close Homeless Encampment Due to Excrement Polluting Mousam River…]
“I find it hard to believe that this program is actually helping people,” said Sanford Mayor Becky Brink.
“Everyone knows if you put a barrier in place, it’ll change your behavior,” Brink said, giving the example of cigarettes being sold from behind the counter as a barrier aimed at decreasing the number of people who smoke.
“So are we going against that study, by giving all these needles — and I would almost think we should spend more money in education than giving these needles, especially when we are harming our children who are playing in our parks everyday,” Brink added.
Brink also complimented the recent op-ed written by Portland Mayor Mark Dion, in which Dion argued in favor of restoring a 1:1 exchange ratio for the city’s SSP. Brink said she shares Dion’s concerns regarding public safety and residents’ fears of using public parks littered with needles.
“We have to weigh both ends of this,” Brink said. “We have to protect the people who are on drugs, but we can’t let it interfere with the 23,000 other people that are in our community, we have to find a balance.”
[RELATED: Mills Admin Proceeds with $15,000 Study into ‘Safe Consumption Sites’…]
Several members of the city council agreed with Buck’s assessment of the program as creating a public health hazard in the city, and voiced their support for restoring the 1:1 ratio.
“I think one of the telling pieces of the free needles, is that the people who signed up for it, not many of them are signing up for the offered counseling services,” said Deputy Mayor Maura Herlihy. “They’re signing up for the needles, but not the counseling.”
“I want to bring it up as immediately as possible for a vote, to get this out of our border now,” said Councilor Pete Tranchemontagne.
“[Maine CDC] is not telling us the harm reduction, they’re not working with us,” Tranchemontagne said. “I want it out of here — I’ll be the bad guy, I’ll put my face on it for the city — I want it out.”
City Councilor Ayn Hanselmann said she believes the entire council is in agreement that “the greater public is now in harm’s way because of the current exchange rate” of the syringe distribution program.
Councilor Nathan Hitchcock said that while the state ultimately is in control of the program, the city can at the minimum go back to how the program first started as a 1:1 exchange, for “protecting our citizens, our children, from a new developed — maybe unintentional — but a new developed public health crisis.”
“It certainly seems like the state level isn’t really interested in working with us, or trying to push Maine Access Points back to a single one-for-one exchange,” said Councilor Jonathan Martell.
Martell asked for a discussion on what options the city has regarding oversight of the program, and for those options to be put on a future agenda.
Mayor Brink said she and the city manager will be meeting with city officials of the other dozen communities that host syringe exchange programs licensed by the state, in order to workshop possible ordinances to restore the 1:1 ratio, or other measures to mitigate the public health hazard posed by the discarded needles.
