Mail-based syringe exchanges could help rural drug users

Mail-order syringe exchanges may help intravenous drug users in rural and other underserved areas access clean needles, Emma Coleman reports for Route Fifty.

Syringe exchanges have been proven a safe and effective way to reduce the spread of contagious diseases from intravenous drug users without increasing drug use, but some people, especially in rural areas, have a hard time accessing such services, Coleman reports. Sometimes it's because there are no local syringe exchanges—15 states ban them, and in some other states the can't get required local approval—and sometimes it's because of transportation problems or fear of stigma or lack of confidentiality.

New York-based nonprofit NEXT Distro is trying to help such people by shipping them safe injection supplies like syringes, alcohol pads, tourniquets, gauze, sharps disposal containers, fentanyl test strips, antibiotic ointment, and syringe clippers, Coleman reports. The organization's FAQ page says it also sends clients materials on drug-user health, wound identification and care, family planning, and overdose prevention. It isn't a needle exchange; users don't mail back their sharps. 

"If you live in a rural area, or you’re poor, you should have the same access to support and harm reduction. You can order syringes from online marketplaces like Amazon and people do that—people who have money," NEXT Distro founder Jamie Favaro told Coleman. Favaro got the idea of mailing harm reduction supplies from activist Tracey Helton, who mails the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone to people who ask her for it on a Reddit forum. NEXT Distro also mails naloxone.

The organization was initially supplied by the New York Department of Health, but now relies partly on a GoFundMe page and support from other nonprofit organizations, according to the website.