During their meeting on Monday, the Portland City Council will be considering a resolution that would call upon the City Manager to reduce the exchange ratio at the city-operated Syringe Services Program (SSP) to 1:1 due to concerns from residents over the improper disposal of used needles.
Portland’s 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.
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Current Maine CDC guidelines allow for the syringe exchanges to distribute up to 100 needles for every one needle that they collect.
The resolution, prepared by Portland Mayor Mark Dion, would urge 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 COVID-19 pandemic, effective 45 days after the passage of the resolution.
“[C]ommunity safety concerns regarding the improper disposal of used syringes have
been raised by residents, business owners, visitors and community organizations,” the resolution states. “[A] higher exchange ratio may contribute to a higher number of improperly disposed syringes in public and private spaces, affecting community perception and safety.”
According to the resolution, reestablishing a 1:1 exchange ratio would encourage program participants to make more frequent visits to the SSP, and would facilitate their access to other health services, including mental health counseling and wound care.
Mayor Dion’s resolution comes just over a month after he penned an op-ed published in the Portland Press Herald, in which he argued that the “constant tide of needle waste” has become intolerable for the public and announced that he would be introducing a resolution seeking to reform the program.
Citing the fact that the city’s syringe exchange distributed about 250,000 more needles than they collected in 2023, Dion wrote that the needle waste “is a public safety hazard of our own making.”
“Despite best intentions, we are awash with discarded hypodermic needles,” Dion wrote. “Despite the best efforts of our public works staff and park rangers to remove these biological hazards from our public properties, the constant tide of needle waste does not abate.”
“Waste is treated as a policy afterthought, espousing an expectation that citizens will do their part in collecting that waste in service to their community,” he wrote.
“Portland residents and business owners, however, no longer want to go where everyone is going. They have had their fill of a policy where the presence of discarded needles has gone from good to bad and, in some parts of the city, intolerable,” he added.
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The Maine Democratic Socialists of America (Maine DSA) on Thursday shared an “Action Alert” from a group called the Portland Maine Street Medic Collective on their social media announcing their intention to voice their opposition to Mayor Dion’s proposed resolution.
The Maine Street Medic Collective describes itself as an “anti-fascist collective of street medics & nurses providing medical & first aid support to marginalized communities and frontline liberation activists.”
“At the next City Council meeting (Monday, 10/21) Dion is set to unveil a reckless, heartless, and downright dangerous proposal that will attack and undermine Portland’s Needle Exchange Program / Syringe Service Program,” the group wrote.
“This is a direct assault on harm reduction and public health and will put people’s lives and safety at risk. Dion will be proposing a 1:1 syringe distribution exchange ratio which requires participants to turn in used syringes in order to receive new ones,” they wrote.
“This will greatly reduce the number of new/sterile syringes available to people who use drugs and will inevitably lead to higher rates of disease transmission and negative health outcomes for many,” they added.
At a meeting of the Portland City Council’s Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee last month, City Councilor Kate Sykes, former co-chair of the Maine DSA, claimed that used hypodermic needles littering the city are “not a public health risk.”
WATCH:
“There really is not a public health risk to the fact that there is a needle on the ground,” Sykes said. “It’s not trading one public health emergency for another public health emergency.”
“There just is no risk really for this,” she said.
Sykes also said that the city should encourage Portland residents to pick up the discarded hypodermic needles themselves, adding “they’re not gonna jump up and bite ya.”
The Sanford City Council on Tuesday passed a similar resolution petitioning the Maine CDC to restore the 1:1 ratio for the city’s syringe exchange program due to what the city has called a “public health crisis” caused by improperly discarded needles.
Under Maine law, rulemaking authority for the Hypodermic apparatus exchange programs ultimately lies with the Maine CDC.
Sanford Mayor Becky Brink said on Tuesday that she was planning to meet with the mayors of other cities that host syringe exchange programs, including Portland, and would be sending them the resolution passed by the Sanford City Council in hopes that the other cities will follow in Sanford’s footsteps in demanding reform from the Maine CDC.
“[Mark Dion] is following the same path we’re following,” Mayor Brink said. “And then all the other mayors who belong to it are just saying they’re going to back what we’re going to do.”
“So more than just Portland, Sanford — we’ll have multiple cities saying ‘we’re done with this’, hopefully,” Brink added.
Portland Mayor Mark Dion’s full proposed resolution can be read below:
