A discarded needle in an alleyway off Cumberland Street in Portland in September. Shawn Patrick Ouellette/Staff Photographer

Despite warnings from public health officials about the potential risks, the Sanford City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to restrict the number of used syringes that can be exchanged through York County’s only needle exchange program.

Starting in two weeks, the syringe services program in Sanford will have to shift to one-to-one exchange rate, meaning people can receive one clean needle for every used needle they bring in. Currently, people can get up to 100 needles for each one they bring in.

City officials say the move is necessary to address a growing problem of inappropriately discarded needles in the city, which they argue causes a serious risk to community members who find them in parks, on trails and tossed into their yards.

“(This) will help the population who are using the needles to police themselves to take them off our trails, to take them out of our parks, to clean up our neighborhoods,” Mayor Becky Brink said at the meeting.

The emergency ordinance will be in effect for 91 days, after which the City Council could decide to enact a permanent ordinance.

Last month, the Portland City Council shot down a proposal from Mayor Mark Dion to reduce the city’s needle exchange program to one-to-one, with several councilors citing concerns about the public health risks it would pose. The same night, the council voted to pilot a needle buyback program that will be paid for with opioid settlement funds.

‘THE SCIENCE IS CLEAR’

Maine Access Points, a nonprofit that works on harm reduction, has operated a state-certified syringe service program in Sanford since 2020 and now serves about 500 people. For decades, state law required a one-to-one exchange policy, but the governor temporarily loosened those restrictions during the pandemic. The state law changed permanently in 2002, allowing needle exchange programs to give out up to 100 clean needles at a time.

Anna McConnell, executive director of the organization, urged the City Council not to vote for the one-to-one restriction because of the risk to people who use needles. She said the organization is dealing with an HIV cluster among people who use drugs in another Maine community, likely because of limited access to a syringe service, and she fears the same thing could happen in Sanford.

The organization this week installed a sharps container at its office in Sanford and has offered to install and empty others across the city, McConnell said. Sanford does not have any other public sharps disposal boxes.

Before the council vote on Tuesday, city staff reached out to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention and others who work on substance use issues about the concerns about needle waste in the community. City Manager Steven Buck said he did not feel the city’s concerns have been addressed.

In a letter to Buck earlier this month, Maine CDC Director Dr. Puthiery Va said a “strict 1:1 exchange would be detrimental to the public health and will not address the separate public health concern of needle waste.”

“The science is clear,” she wrote. “Restricting syringe access has been linked to poor community health outcomes, including infectious disease transmission, drug-related overdoses and other health problems.”

Gordon Smith, the state director of opioid response, told the council that he considers syringe waste “both a public health issue and an aesthetics issue” and urged councilors to give the needle exchange program a grace period to transition its clients to a one-to-one model. Brink later amended the emergency order to include a 14-day period before it goes into effect.

‘NOT A GOOD IMAGE’

During public comment, four residents urged the council to enact the ordinance. Dianne Connolly, who lives in Springvale, described picking up 25 needles on her lawn in the past four years and seeing many more on the railroad tracks near her house.

“It’s not a good image,” she said. “I realize people have problems, but it doesn’t become other people’s problems.”

Alec Robinson, who lives in the city, was among the residents and service providers who urged the city to look for other solutions. He said there may be a cost to installing and emptying syringe disposal containers, but “restricting access costs lives.”

“I’m very concerned that in a hurry to solve an ugly problem, the council is potentially going to go for an even uglier solution,” he said.