California grand
jury recommends needle-exchange program

In a recently released interim report, the Fresno County, Calif., grand jury recommends that the county take advantage of two state laws that would allow the establishment of a needle exchange program and over-the-counter sales of syringes to help fight the spread of HIV among injection-drug users, TheFresno Bee reports. The report comes on the heels of a study in the September 2004 issue of the Journal of Urban Health that found the city of Fresno had 173 injection-drug users for every 10,000 residents, the highest ratio of any large metropolitan area in the nation and nearly three times the average ratio of other metro U.S. areas. The grand jury report estimates that Fresno County has nearly 15,000 injection-drug users, all of whom may be at risk for HIV and hepatitis infection if they share needles and drug paraphernalia.

Fresno County supervisors have been reluctant to establish a needle exchange program, partly because of concerns about liability if a person was stuck by a needle distributed by county workers, but the grand jury determined that state law AB 136, passed by the state legislature in 1999, protects the county from any criminal prosecution related to needle exchange program activities. The report also recommends that the county take advantage of recently approved SB 1159, a California law that allows cities and counties to authorize participating pharmacies to sell up to 10 syringes without a prescription.