12 months later: Needle exchange helps take 234 gallons of syringes off Atlantic City streets

[Guest guest]

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/179/story/231991.html

12 months later: Needle exchange helps take 234 gallons of syringes off Atlantic

City streets

By MICHELLE LEE Staff Writer, 609-272-7256

Published: Monday, August 18, 2008

An occasional update on local stories that were in the news just a year ago.

Local health officials expect to be ready in September 2007 to start giving

clean needles to intravenous drug users under an experimental program by the

state to try to fight the spread of HIV and AIDS. The city will join Camden,

Newark and Paterson in the needle-exchange pilot program announced by the state

Department of Health and Senior Services. The programs will be a first for New

Jersey, which has been the only state in the country without a legal way for

drug addicts to get clean syringes.

The Atlantic City needle exchange program has been successful since the clinic

opened Nov. 27, said Ron Cash, Atlantic City's health officer. A total of 414

clients have used the program as of Aug. 13, and about 29,000 clean syringes

have been distributed, Cash said.

Gene Brunner, the city's HIV services coordinator, said the program helped

remove 234 gallons of contaminated syringes from the streets. People who

participate in the program can be tested for HIV and Hepatitis A,B, and C.

Brunner said they hope to offer vaccinations for Hepatitis A and B starting in

September.

Cash said about 70 percent of the people in the program are Caucasian, and the

rest of the clients are evenly split between blacks and Hispanics. The average

client is 38 years old, and about 73 percent of the clients are male. Cash said

95 percent of the participants are heterosexual and the remaining are homosexual

and bisexual.

The needle-exchange program is open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays and

Thursdays at the Oasis Drop-In Center, 32 S. Tennessee Ave