Utah Syringe Exchanges

With theOpioid Epidemicraging in Utah and the United States, it is important to reduce harm to people who inject drugs. Syringe sharing among people who inject drugs in Utah spreads diseases like HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis. People who inject drugs contract HIV in significant numbers (1 in 23 female injection drug users and 1 in 36 males). The National Institute on Drug Abuse reports that every person who injects drugs infected with Hepatitis-C is likely to infect 20 other people. Along with the human toll, the cost of treating these diseases impacts Utah's budget. Treating each patient with Hepatitis-C, for example, costs over $50,000. Lifetime treatment for HIV patients is approximately $400,000.

The transmission of infectious diseases people who inject drugs can be reduced by the distribution of clean syringes. Clean needles also can reduce staph infections and endocarditis (a bacterial infection of the heart). In 2016, Utah authorized syringe exchanges. Syringe exchange programs, like the Utah Harm Reduction Coalition (UHRC) opened shorty after.

Along with the clean syringes, UHRC prefers to hand out disposable aluminum "cookers," in which the heroin is mixed with water and heated, to be drawn into the syringe. Without clean cookers, addicts will re-use spoons and Coke cans, creating a disease vector for the spread of Hepatitis, which can survive 6 weeks on a dry surface. Also, the UHRC prefers to hand out clean cotton swabs, which are used to filter the heroin as it is drawn into the syringe. Absent clean swabs, addicts are likely to use dirty or bloody swabs or socks. Additionally, the UHRC prefers to hand out rubber tourniquet, so users can raise a vain rather than cause infection by probing for a vain.

Some law enforcement agencies in Utah object to the cookers, swabs and tourniquets, and have threatened to arrest UHRC personnel on paraphernalia charges if these additional items are distributed, arguing they encourage heroin use by making it too easy.