The Portland City Council on Monday rejected a resolution proposed by Mayor Mark Dion that was aimed at reducing the number of hypodermic needles littered throughout the city by reimplementing a 1:1 ratio at the city’s syringe exchange program.
[RELATED: Maine Is Handing Out Free “Boofing” Kits to Help Fentanyl Addicts Squirt Drugs Up Their Butts…]
Portland’s Syringe Services Program (SSP), commonly referred to as “The Exchange,” is part of a statewide “harm reduction” program overseen by the Maine CDC that distributes hypodermic needles to people who inject drugs.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Maine CDC had rules in place that required SPP participants to exchange used needles for sterile syringes at a 1:1 ratio.
Current Maine CDC guidelines, however, allow for the syringe exchanges to distribute up to 100 needles for every one needle that they collect.
The resolution debated by the Council on Monday would have called on City Manager Danielle West and city staff to reimplement the 1:1 needle exchange ratio at the SSP that was in place prior to the pandemic, effective 45 days after the passage of the resolution.
City data shows that Portland’s syringe exchange program distributed about 250,000 more needles than they collected in 2023.
Mayor Dion cited this figure in his op-ed, published in the Portland Press Herald last month, as causing a “constant tide of needle waste” that has put the city’s residents at risk.
The City Council heard over an hour of public comment on the mayor’s proposed reform to the syringe exchange program, with opponents of the resolution arguing that the 1:1 exchange ratio would increase the risk of transmission of blood-borne diseases.
“A 1:1 exchange rate proposal will increase health risks among many members of the community, especially the most vulnerable people in our community,” said Julie Orrego, advocacy supervisor at the Portland-based social services and shelter nonprofit Preble Street.
“Providing adequate supplies of clean needles is a harm reduction principle that the city has prioritized for nearly 30 years,” Orrego said, adding that the 1:1 requirement might discourage drug users from using the syringe exchange program altogether.
Louis Fournier, a Portland resident and plumber, showed the City Council a box of 11 used needles and 48 needle caps he said he collected during his service calls throughout the city on Monday alone.
“I think what happened here is the needles have supercharged people just littering,” Fournier said. “I’m no expert, but here’s what I do know — it just seems that as a community we keep pandering to this entitled segment of the population that thinks we need to do something for them.”
“I really feel like we need to focus in on what is good for the community,” Fournier said in support of Dion’s resolution.
One argument often presented by proponents of the syringe exchange programs is that the program offers an opportunity for people addicted to drugs to connect with other services, such as testing for blood-borne diseases, naloxone distribution, wound care and mental health treatment.
Dion said during discussion of the resolution that the number one referral made by staff at the syringe exchange was for food assistance, not for recovery or counseling services.
“When I looked at this idea of referral, the primary referral that was made by our SSP program was for food,” Dion said.
“I was naive — I thought I would see referral, as one person characterized it, ‘a warm handoff’ to a recovery specialist, or a detox service, or some manner of help that would help address the underlying disease pattern,” Dion said. “But that wasn’t the case.”
“It’s not about stigmatizing,” Dion added. “But I do have concerns that people fail to recognize that the community pays for what we do, and they don’t feel heard.”
[RELATED: Mills Admin Proceeds with $15,000 Study into ‘Safe Consumption Sites’…]
City Councilor Anna Bullett said that while she agrees needle waste is a “serious concern” that must be addressed, she does not believe “that limiting the needle exchange ratio will do anything to improve needle waste.”
“People who inject drugs are members of our community as much as people who own building are,” Bullett said.
City Councilor April Fournier, chair of the Council’s Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee, said that the frustration of residents who see needles littering their neighborhoods is a “valid concern.”
“I absolutely recognize this is a crisis, we need to make sure that we’re addressing it,” Fournier said. “But I just don’t believe that restricting access without having all of the facts and information, and having actual solutions, will help our community and help those that are most in need.”
Councilor Anna Trevorrow told Mayor Dion that the proposed resolution would be stigmatizing, based on what she said was “drawing a negative judgment from anecdotal evidence.”
“To me, it is very harmful when we set policy — we’re a policy making body, and if we are going to honor stigma in our decisions about what policies we write, then we write discriminatory policies,” Trevorrow said.
“It’s not about stigma, it’s about reality sometimes,” Dion quipped after Trevorrow’s comments.
The City Council voted 7 to 1 to shoot down the proposed resolution, with Mayor Dion being the only affirmative vote.
Councilors Fournier, Trevorrow, Bullett, Roberto Rodriguez, Kate Sykes, Pious Ali and Regina Phillips all voted against the resolution.
Later in the meeting the City Council unanimously approved an allocation of roughly $1.38 million in opioid settlement funds towards three different public health initiatives related to the opioid crisis.
[RELATED: City of Portland May Use Opioid Settlement Funds to ‘buyback’ Used Syringes…]
The first of the initiatives is is a pilot “syringe buyback” program, which would involve the city’s syringe exchange program paying drug users cash when they return used syringes.
The “buyback” program would be modeled after similar programs implemented in Boston and New York City, and would involve a payout of five cents per used syringe returned to the exchange.
As proposed, the buyback program would be a year-long pilot beginning in January 2025, and would be funded by $52,000 — allowing for roughly one million used syringes to be bought back by the city.
Two other uses for the funds approved by the City Council on Monday involve the creation of a “low-barrier” daytime homeless shelter, and providing funding for an on-peninsula methadone clinic in Portland to treat opioid withdrawal.
Watch as some residents opposed the 1×1 syringe exchange proposal:
How about 0 for 1 exchange. Play with fire get burned, you wont be missed.
Just stay out of Portland and we will not step on one. Buspeople will follow.
Besides illegals, this group of people seem to be catered to. Why are we not trying to wean them off illegal drugs. Why is governments solutions to give them more drugs, give them free needles, give them narcan and then they let them go, give them money for needles and let’s give them safe injection sites. It’s almost as if the government’s solution to the problem is to keep them high, but make it look like they care.
Start passing out meat injectors instead of the small syringes. They hold more product. It’ll give em their money’s worth and they’ll also come in handy this Thanksgiving. It’s a win-win for both sides.
People of Portland you are the biggest group of idiots I have ever met!!! First get rid of the Communists on the Council and in other positions thru out the city. Second end the entire needle program and put these ‘people’ in jail or rehab.
Stop the ridiculous programs for people who contribute nothing to society. Portland can’t maintain its roads and schools and basic infrastructure, before pissing money away on this crap pay attention to those things. Also lose the idiotic “Sanctuary City ” garbage that has gotten you nothing but misery and the scum of the earth.
Researching City Councilor candidates, at least here in Bangor was next to impossible. Some information was behind BDN’s paywall – I always took BDN endorsed candidates and instantly ruled them out… But it’s very hard to know anything about local candidates. These unknowns can make horrible decisions if elected and some will progress upward in the political system.
I’m tired of feeling sorry for the junkies , the in your face queers , the illegal aliens , the habitual criminals , the people who do nothing but clutter us up , and always want- want -need -need more – more .
They ALWAYS NEED MORE . I want to start celebrating the good people , the hard workers , the law abiding , the non needy , the productive . You know what Mr Scrooge said about the “ surplus population “ .
So now they are paying people to shoot up. Brilliant. I’m with Mayor Dion on this one.
You see people all the time rummaging through trash and walking the sides of roads for discarded bottles to return for a whopping 5 cents. Won’t this incentivize people, even kids perhaps to walk around picking discarded needles too. If public safety is truly the goal that does t make sense to me.
Portland….a low budget imitation of that pesthole….San Francisco?
You can guarantee that 95% of the people in the audience have voted for and supported the political party that promotes the policies that they are now angry about being implemented. YOU voted for this. YOU accept the consequences.
How about: since druggin is (still) ILLEGAL the state/city/government NOT aid and abbed ongoing felonies. Not a scholarship, but couldn’t we extrapolate this and the city of Portland could be charged under RICO. (ongoing criminal enterprise) makes you go hmmmm