Senate OKs bill that could lead to needle exchange programs across state

Legislation that would allow counties or local health departments to operate their own needle exchange programs was approved in the Senate Thursday.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Jeff Yarbro, D-Nashville, and House Minority Leader Craig Fitzhugh, D-Ripley, expands on an idea that became law last year.

That measure permitted needle exchange programs in major metropolitan areas, Sen. Steve Dickerson, R-Nashville, said Thursday while endorsing Yarbro’s bill on the Senate floor.

Dickerson said the new needle exchange legislation is needed, given an HIV outbreak that occurred in 2015 in a rural county in Indiana.

“If they had had a needle exchange program, epidemiologists believe that could have largely been blunted if not prevented entirely,” he said.

Dickerson noted that rural counties would benefit most from Yarbro’s legislation.

He pointed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that found of the 220 counties in the United States that are statistically at risk for such outbreaks, more than 40 counties are in Tennessee.

“This bill allows those counties the latitude to potentially proactively deal with this and hopefully blunt this tragedy from occurring,” Dickerson concluded.

And Dickerson wasn’t the only Republican to rise in support of the measure. He was followed by Sen. Janice Bowling, R-Tullahoma, who offered her support for the measure.

The chamber approved the bill with 29-1 vote. The lone dissenting vote came from Sen. Joey Hensley, R-Hohenwald.

The House version of the bill is scheduled to be taken up in the chamber’s finance committee.

The chamber also voted 26-2 for another bill, which Dickerson sponsored, that sets new distance parameters for the current needle exchange law regarding where they can exist in metropolitan areas. Hensley and Sen. Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, voted against the measure.

Reach Joel Ebert at jebert@tennessean.com or 615-772-1681 and on Twitter @joelebert29.