Pubdate: Thu, 22 Mar 2007
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2007 The Register-Guard
Contact:  http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?137 (Needle Exchange)

FINDING DIRTY NEEDLES

If appreciative citizens have not yet presented HIV Alliance 
volunteer Joe Ferguson - the best used-syringe retriever money didn't 
have to buy - with a couple of pairs of needle-proof gloves, it must 
be because they missed reporter Jack Moran's story in last Sunday's 
Register-Guard.

Moran introduced readers to local hero Ferguson, a 38-year-old former 
Marine reconnaissance swimmer who spends hours of his free time each 
week searching for and disposing of used needles that have been 
discarded by drug users. He works barehanded with a "garbage grabber" 
tool to snag dirty needles.

With an estimated 10,000 injection drug users in Lane County shooting 
heroin and methamphetamine - often several times a day - Ferguson has 
his work cut out for him. He and his helpers on the Sana Neighborhood 
Needle Awareness Program cleanup crews have picked up and safely 
disposed of about 600 dirty needles since January. Each used needle 
is a potential carrier of deadly blood-borne diseases such as 
hepatitis C and HIV.

That might seem like a lot of hazardous waste being scattered 
throughout the parks, alleys and homeless camps in the 
Eugene-Springfield area. In reality, Ferguson retrieves just a 
fraction of what could be out there if it weren't for the enormously 
successful needle exchange programs offered by HIV Alliance and the 
Lane County Public Health Department.

HIV Alliance distributed 540,000 needles to injection drug users last 
year. About 98 percent were returned and exchanged for clean 
syringes. Such exchange programs play a major role in preventing the 
spread of HIV and hepatitis C that would result from drug users 
sharing dirty needles.

Not only do the programs reduce the spread of infection without 
increasing illegal drug use, they also provide an increasingly 
important avenue for addicts to learn about treatment options. 
Research confirms that outreach to drug users through needle exchange 
programs helps users reduce risky behaviors, inject drugs less often 
and enter substance abuse treatment.

Hepatitis C leads to chronic liver disease in 70 percent of those 
infected. An estimated 50 percent to 80 percent of injection drug 
users in the United States are infected with hepatitis C within five 
years of first injecting drugs. Treating a single case of HIV - the 
virus that causes AIDS - can cost upward of $200,000.

That makes the HIV Alliance's $145,000 a year needle exchange program 
a bargain that Lane County can't afford to pass up. But the 
Alliance's bare-bones funding doesn't leave a cent left over to pay 
for its needle cleanup program.

Ferguson and his fellow volunteers are making Lane County's parks and 
public areas safer for everyone, especially children.

Citizens could make the work safer for these volunteers by donating 
needle-proof gloves, biohazard containers or the money to purchase them.

To learn more, to volunteer or to report discarded needles, call the 
HIV Alliance's Neighborhood Needle Awareness Program at 510-1058. Few 
programs offer so much to so many for so little.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman