SANTA CRUZ, Calif.- Drug users who depend on free needles on the Central Coast are now in a sticky situation. That's because it's getting harder to find clean ones. So we decided to find out what's next for volunteers who give needles out to fight the spread of disease.
Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said this week the city and the property owner of a local parking lot, decided they'd had enough of scattered syringes in the surrounding neighborhood.
"This should never be a police issue. The only time it becomes a police issue is when it's done irresponsibly and then we have to deal with the residual impact of that," said Santa Cruz Deputy Chief Steve Clark.
So now Street Outreach Supporters or SOS, a needle exchange program, is trying to come up with a new plan. Clark said for years SOS had been coming to the parking lot near Ocean Street and Barson Street to either hand out or exchange needles. But now they've been kicked off.
"We've had some sites close down in the past. So although the best thing is to have some advanced warnings so that we can prepare out participants for it, we can deal with this," said Street Outreach Supporters volunteer Emily Ager.
SOS is putting volunteers out on the sidewalk near the parking during regularly scheduled exchange times, to send clients to a temporary site on Emiline Street.
"We do about a quarter of a million every year and the average is about 5,000 a week or 20,000 a month," Ager said.
While some criticize their service, thinking SOS just hands needles out left and right, Ager said it's usually a one for one exchange.
"We do a needs assessment with the person anyway to figure out what supplies that need, what specific syringes they need and if they have a need beyond what they've brought into us, we figure out why," Ager said.
The Santa Cruz County Public Health Department said now it's working with the city and SOS to come up with a more comprehensive plan to monitor and distribute clean needles.
