ANDERSON — The Madison County prosecutor took his concerns about items included in needle exchange kits in Madison County and elsewhere to the Statehouse on Monday.
Prosecutor Rodney Cummings said he had heard complaints from members of the Madison County Drug Task Force about the items that aid drug users in shooting methamphetamine, heroin and other opiates. However, he felt the need to take the issue to Indiana government leadership after seeing the kit himself.
In addition to syringes, each needle exchange kit in Madison County for first-time participants in the program comes with a Sharps container to put used needles, a rubber tourniquet, alcohol pads, a bandage, triple antibiotic ointment, condoms, two vials of sterile water, cotton filters, a small metal cooker and a twist tie with which to hold the cooker. After the first visit, users request whichever items they will actually use to save supplies.
Stephenie Grimes, who runs the program through the Madison County Health Department, said each item helps protect users from spreading HIV and hepatitis B and C to others.
Cummings and Prosecutor Pat Harrington of Tippecanoe County met with Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill and legislative aides of Gov. Eric Holcomb to discuss their concerns Monday afternoon. Cummings and Harrington are the two prosecutors from the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council who are talking with Holcomb’s legislative aides to come to a consensus of how to deal with the heroin epidemic and the related public health concerns.
Cummings said he can’t see how it is justifiable for health departments to give out all of the tools to make taking heroin and other drugs easier.
“That sounds like encouraging drugs use rather than discouraging drug use,” he said.
Grimes said since Madison County’s needle exchange program was the second to open in the state, they modeled the program after the pilot program in Scott County.
One of the more controversial items in the kit is a small, thin metal pot that is commonly called a cooker. It is not used for methamphetamine, but it is used to heat up heroin and other opiates.
Brittany Combs, public health nurse of Scott County, said having the cookers available is crucial because hepatitis C and HIV can be transmitted by using the same cooker.
“We’ve actually had some new positives,” Combs said. “They never shared needles but they shared the cotton and the cookers with each other.”
Cummings said the meeting with Hill and others went well.
“They are actually surprised, which might be an understatement, that our health agencies are dispensing items that facilitate the use of heroin,” he said.
Grimes said it should not be a surprise to anyone what is in the kit because the proposal and budget justification is posted on the health department’s website and lists all of the items in the kit. The proposal was signed by several county leaders.
Another concern Cummings had was a substance he heard was in the kits that made the injections of drugs not sting as much. Grimes said that product, called Acidifier, also stops infections but was only given out when the program first launched. It has not been given in about a year, she said.
Part of the idea of the program is that users know people at the health department that they can ask when they are ready to get help. However, the main concern for health departments is stopping the transmission of HIV and hepatitis.
“All I look at is how to do this safely without spreading disease,” she said. “They are going to do it regardless. I want to make sure they can do that safely and not spread that disease anymore.”