NEEDLE SWAPS RISE AMONG METH USERS ON NORTH OLYMPIC PENINSULA

Intravenous drug users in Clallam County prefer to shoot
methamphetamine almost 2-to-1 over heroin.

In Jefferson County, it's about half and half.

Either way you cut it, if a person is addicted to either of the two
drugs, officials with the health departments in the two counties can
help them get help.

But the primary mission of a needle exchange programs in either
county is to prevent the spread of disease by taking used needles off
the street.

They do so by taking used syringes and exchanging them for clean ones.

And they do it for one, simple reason:

"We're not there to judge," said Bev Simmons, the sexually
transmitted disease and STD/HIV coordinator for Clallam County Health
and Human Services.

"We're there to prevent disease."

Sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and also hepatitis B
and C can be transmitted through sharing needles.

Simultaneous starts

The needle-exchange programs in the two counties began at the same time.

And since 2000, as the prevalence of methamphetamine and other hard
drugs has increased on the North Olympic Peninsula, the number of
syringes swapped has increased as well.

In 2003, Clallam Health and Human Services gave out a total of 38,527
needles, Simmons said.

The number soared to 72,734 in 2004 but dipped to 68,062 in 2005.

"That's a huge number," Simmons said.

The department also kept numbers that indicated that in 2005, about
80 percent of new clients said they injected methamphetamine and
about 40 percent said they injected heroin.

In Jefferson County, the numbers were about evenly split, said Kellie
Ragan, program coordinator for the Jefferson County Syringe Exchange Program.

In 2003, the Jefferson County exchange traded about 13,716 needles.

In 2004 the number jumped to 18,060, but then dropped by half in 2005
to 9,222, according to data provided by Ragan.