NY adding rural sites for needle exchanges

This regulation will reduce the number of opioid overdoses and deaths. — NYS Health Department, headed dd by Dr. Howard Zucker (left)

The state plans to increase the number of sites where drug addicts can score clean needles as the opioid crisis rages, according to new “emergency” regulations approved by the Cuomo administration.

The so-called “Secondary Syringe Exchange” program — aimed at curbing the spread of HIV, hepatitis C and other blood-borne illnesses — allows new satellite needle-exchange centers in hard-to-reach and rural parts of the state, according to the New York State Register.

The syringe stations help drug abusers who live too far from the state’s current 24 exchange sites trade dirty syringes for clean ones on the state’s dime, health officials said.

Under the new rules, which went into effect on Nov. 12, more facilities — such as LGBTQ centers, local government health departments and sexually transmitted disease clinics — can apply to offer the service.

“By providing additional access to sterile syringes in settings in which opioid overdoses can be minimized, this regulation will reduce the number of opioid overdoses and deaths,” the state Health Department said in a statement supporting the regulation. “[It will] improve the health of individuals who inject drugs, and their communities.”

But the new regulations have already drawn the ire of neighbors who fear their backyards will become the next “Needle Park.”

“We don’t need this,” said Arnold Tobin, 66, who lives near a syringe exchange center in the St. Albans section of Queens. “Who will manage the people coming in and out and once they get a clean needle?”

The Health Department will pay an estimated $250,000 to provide the new sites with syringes, containers to dispose of dirty needles and syringes, alcohol pads and non-latex gloves.

Health officials cited the opioid epidemic as reason to increase the number of facilities. In New York, residents who died from overdoses linked to opioids has tripled — from 1,074 in 2010 to 3,224 in 2017, officials said.

They also warned about a spike in HIV rates linked to shooting up in surrounding states such as Connecticut, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.

Last year, Mayor de Blasio announced plans to open four supervised injection facilities — but it was never approved by the state.

The sites were slated to open as one-year trial programs at existing needle exchange centers in the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn, Midtown West and Washington Heights in Manhattan, and Longwood in The Bronx.

But during testimony on the state budget in February, state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker expressed concerns that the Trump administration could “mount a legal challenge” to the injection facilities.

The new rules don’t address de Blasio’s plan for supervised injection facilities as part of syringe exchange, a Health Department official said.