Making
police into partners
Police education is a key component in the development of a successful needle exchange program. In 1998, some 45 programs reported police harassment of people coming to use the exchange. The most common form of harassment was officers confiscating syringes or forcing exchange participants to break the points off their syringes.(1)
Participant
harassment occurred at legal as well as underground programs.
In 1998, participants in 17 legal needle exchange programs, 15
illegal-tolerated programs and 13 illegal-underground programs experienced
police harassment.
Although
individual police officers can remain confused about the role of needle
exchange programs in disease prevention, when it is explained to them,
many officers see both their own personal advantage and the public health
benefits of needle exchange programs.
An
officer patting down a suspect is much less likely to get a dangerous
needle stick when the suspect is carrying a new syringe with its
protective cap (which is legal and the suspect feels free to mention) than
when a suspect is hiding a used and (perhaps infected), illegal needle
whose protective cap has long since been lost.
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Footnote
(1) The information on needle exchange programs in 1998 is taken from Denise Panoe, Don C. Des Jarlais, Mytri Ptritam Singh, Courtney McKnight, and Stephen Titus, "National Syringe Exchange Survey 1998," presentation at the North American Syringe Exchange Convention, Portland, Oregon, April 2000.
Paone
and her colleagues define legal needle exchange programs as those
operating in states that had no law requiring a prescription to purchase a
hypodermic syringe or that had an exemption to the law allowing the
program to operate. Illegal-tolerated programs operated in states with a
prescription law and received a formal vote of support or approval of a
local elected body such as a city council. Illegal-underground exchanged
operated in states with a prescription law and did not have formal support
of local elected officials.
For a list of other
materials used on this website, see References.
