NEARLY 80,000 SYRINGES HANDED OUT IN MARIN PROGRAM, A DROP FROM PREVIOUS YEARS

Marin health aides last year handed out nearly 80,000 clean syringes,
a decline in the number of needles in the free needle-exchange
program that targets the spread of AIDS and hepatitis C among local drug users.

The fiscal year total reflected the third consecutive annual drop
since 2003-04, when the program swapped 95,477 used syringes for clean ones.

Officials believe the decline may be due in part to a pilot pharmacy
program called Syringe Access, in which needles are sold without
prescriptions at local pharmacies.

It's all part of a "harm-reduction philosophy," said Andy Fyne,
community relations manager for the Marin AIDS Project, which runs
Marin's needle-exchange program.

By providing local drug users with clean syringes, program workers
and volunteers reduce the spread of HIV, hepatitis C and other
blood-borne diseases by drug users sharing needles. The program,
called Point Program, also hands out information about drug-abuse
counseling, Fyne said, stressing the needle-exchange program provides
his agencies' counselors and volunteers direct contact with
intravenous drug users who would otherwise be hard to reach.

During 2006-07, 77 people entered risk-reduction counseling and
referrals to drug-treatment programs as a result of contacts made in
the needle exchange program, according to a county report presented
to the Board of Supervisors last week.

Most of the swaps take place at weekly stops for the big blue van
that serves as the Point Program's mobile office.

On Monday nights, it can be found in a commuter parking lot in Mill
Valley. It is parked at the end of a side street off Rowland
Boulevard in Novato on Thursday nights. The Marin AIDS Project
office, at 910 Irwin St. in San Rafael, also trades needles from noon
to 4 p.m. weekdays and 5:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesdays.

Marin's program, launched to combat the spread of AIDS, is nearly 20 years old.

For many years, county supervisors had to declare a local public
health emergency every two weeks to legally keep the program alive.
The declaration exempted the swap from prosecution for distributing
syringes without a prescription.

In 2006, a new state law permitted the local programs as a public
health emergency measure, but the law required annual reports to the
local county boards of supervisors, rather than having to approve
bi-weekly resolutions.

The local report, written by Sparkie Spaeth, the county communicable
health and prevention manager, noted that only three cases of HIV
that were diagnosed last year listed intravenous drug use as a
possible risk factor.

"These numbers have been fairly consistent over the past three years,
and demonstrate both the success of and the ongoing need for the
Point Program in the Marin community," she wrote.

In 2005, the AIDS Project Los Angeles reported that nearly 20 percent
of AIDS cases and half of hepatitis C cases in California could be
traced back to injection drug use and the sharing of unsanitary needles.

Spaeth's 2006-07 report estimates that 16 percent of the participants
are younger than 30. Sixty-two percent of the people seeking
exchanges are male.

Ninety percent are white, 6 percent black and 3 percent Latino.

Since 2005, Marin also has participated in a five-year state
demonstration project that allows cities and counties to permit
pharmacists to sell 10 or fewer syringes to a customer without prescriptions.

Fourteen Marin pharmacies are participating in the program, which
includes distribution of pamphlets about prevention, testing and
treatment services along with the syringes.

John Fenech, who heads the Point Program, said the recent drop in
needle exchanges may be the result of the pharmacy program, Syringe
Access, and its strong support among Marin pharmacies.

"I would say that Syringe Access is part of it," he said.

The Point Program, he said, also helps assure that used needles are
disposed of safely. Those turned in are incinerated by a health waste
disposal firm.

Fenech said the Marin program makes a difference, preventing the
spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C and getting some people to give up drugs.

"No doubt about it," he said.

Information about the Marin AIDS Project's Point Program needle
exchange can be found at www.marinaidsproject.org