INDIANA — Two years after Scott County opened the first needle exchange program in Indiana, a bill being consider in the Legislature would give Indiana counties the power to determine the need for a program in their area.
Indiana House Bill 1438 passed the House 72-26 in January and is now before the Senate Committee on Health and Provider Services. If passed, it would allow counties or municipalities to approve syringe exchange programs, instead of going through the state.
Programs would be required to notify the Indiana State Health commissioner in writing when a program is renewed, expired, terminated, or if there are changes with the qualified program operator. It would extend the law regarding programs statewide from July 1, 2019, to July 1, 2021.
Jerome Adams, Indiana State Health commissioner, testified in favor of the bill Wednesday.
“I believe that extra step of having state permission for programs that are already run locally is an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle that can slow a community's ability to respond to a health crisis,” he said in a statement.
“This [approval] was a necessary step when syringes were first launched because this was uncharted territory in Indiana. Counties weren't aware of their HIV, hepatitis C and overdose rates as they are today, and having that state stamp of approval gave many people an added comfort level.”
Under current law, counties must get state approval before a syringe exchange can be implemented. Scott County's was put into effect after an executive order from then-Gov. Mike Pence — a result of an HIV epidemic brought on by sharing of needles for intravenous drug use. To date, there are eight counties with programs, the most recently opened was Clark County after more than a year in the works.
“A lot has changed in Indiana in the last two years,” Adams said, pointing to effects that can already be measured from Scott County's program — new cases of HIV slowed “to a trickle,” the viral suppression rate, which is the rate at which medication lowers the levels of HIV in the blood, is 73 percent, higher than the national average of 25 to 50 percent, and the connection of visitors to other health and addiction services.
“I have no doubt that we would be staring at 500 cases of HIV in Scott County today if not for the needle exchange program and the hard work being done at the local level to ensure that people get the medical care and support services they need,” he said. “Giving the local communities that are doing the work, the power to decide if a program is appropriate is the right thing to do.
“In an ideal world, Indiana would never need exchange programs because there would be no opioid epidemic and no one would be sharing syringes. We do not live in an ideal world, and the costs of this opioid epidemic are mounting every day.”