Note: This piece was cross-posted at Dose of Change.
What do North Carolina law enforcement, migrant workers, Army veterans, injection drug users (IDUs), diabetics, transgender people, sex workers, and pharmacists have in common?
Well, Robert Childs, for one thing.
As Executive Director of the North Carolina Harm Reduction Coalition since 2009, Childs has brought his unique bridge-building ability to bear on the disconnect between federal funding for syringe exchange programs (SEPs) and a state law that makes the possession or distribution of drug paraphernalia a class A misdemeanor—keeping SEPs from operating openly and making used syringes a danger to public safety.
SEPs have been endorsed by groups including the American Medical Association, the CDC, National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, the NAACP, National Black Police Association and the American Bar Association as a cost-effective means of decreasing HIV and Hepatitis C incidence, reducing needle stick injuries to police by as much as two-thirds, providing a gateway to treatment for injection drug users, and removing hazardous biomedical waste from public areas. Since their introduction in the 1980s, SEPs have been credited with an 80% reduction in the rate of new HIV infections among injection drug users, and research has proven that they do not increase drug use or crime.
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