Santa Monica community advocates gathered in Reed Park Tuesday morning to protest Los Angeles County’s needle distribution program.
While the province says the program saves lives and protects public health, the Santa Monica Coalition says handing out needles in three of the city’s public parks draws drug users to the parks and is a safety problem because needles are discarded in the parks.
Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock spoke to protesters as they held signs that read “No More Needles in the Park, No More Crime After Dark” and “Narcan not Needles.”
“We’ve had a long-standing problem in three of our parks, Reed Park, Tongva Park and Palisades Park,” Brock said. “The province hands out clean syringes and needles and they don’t tell us how much they get back, but they distribute them here in this park.”
Last Tuesday, Brock said the council majority voted again to require the county health department to end the outdoor needle distribution program in the parks.
The mayor suggested implementing the program indoors, where other assistance can also be provided. He said he supports Narcan distribution and street team efforts to assist with drug intervention
The province reports that three decades of harm reduction practices in the country have shown it to be effective in reducing overdose deaths and blood-borne infections, and to be safe and cost-efficient.
According to the province, the lifetime cost of medical care for each new HIV infection is more than $400,000; the equivalent amount spent on harm reduction programs prevents at least thirty new HIV infections.
“We want our parks to be available for safe use for all our families and visitors. We believe the program should be removed from our parks,” the Santa Monica Coalition wrote in a news release.
