Our view: Needle distribution helps prevent spread of diseases

It’s a La Crosse headline that certainly brings an emotional response: “114,322 in five months: Needle distribution grows in La Crosse.”

The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin provides free syringes to illegal drug users, and its La Crosse office reported last week that it has distributed 114,322 clean needles to more than 1,500 drug users in the first five months of 2016.

What possible good can come from such news? Aren’t we making it easier for illegal drug use?

Those are understandable questions.

It’s easy to detest drug use and the cost to our community and its people. If you choose to detest the people involved, that’s your choice.

But there’s a public-health risk inherent in the use of dirty needles that needs to be considered — the potential spread of disease to everyone, not just drug users.

There’s also the need to save lives with Narcan, the lifesaving antidote for people who have overdosed on opiates.

To help curb infection, the Lifepoint Needle Exchange Program is designed to prevent the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C.

The idea is to provide clean needles and materials used in injecting drugs. The agency also accepts the return of dirty needles for proper disposal.

Understand, we’d rather see such programs cease because of lack of demand.

It’s frightening to see that local needle distribution has risen from 11,263 in 2008 to 218,895 last year. Of course, it’s frightening to read our stories each day that document that rising toll of illegal drug use because of crime and abuse.

But the risk to public health of not providing clean needles — the risk of spreading HIV or Hepatitis C — is too great to ignore.

Prevention supervisor Laura Runchey of the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin told the La Crosse County Heroin and Illicit Drug Task Force: “You can get Hepatitis C from cotton or the cookers.”

She’s also convinced that, after proper training, people who have administered the drug to counteract opiate overdose have saved lives in our community.

Illegal drug use is a business — a nasty business.

We’re tired of writing about it and we’re tired of seeing the fallout in our community.

But stopping the needle-distribution program tomorrow won’t stop the spread of illegal drug use.

Stopping the program will, however, reduce a significant safeguard against the spread of disease throughout our community.

Sadly, we can’t afford to take that risk.