Lorain tries harm reduction with clean needle exchanges

LORAIN — Can a focus on harm reduction, rather than law enforcement, be a way to deal with the ongoing drug overdose epidemic? The staff at a harm reduction clinic run by the Nord Center, 3150 Clifton Ave. in Lorain, hope their efforts can reduce the ongoing toll taken by the drug epidemic. What's in the kits? At the clinic, open from 1-5 p.m. Mondays and Fridays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, people dealing with drug addiction can turn in used needles in exchange for clean needles, lessening the danger that injections of illegal drugs will spread diseases such as hepatitis. They are also offered kits designed to lessen the danger of using drugs. The kits: Include fentanyl test strips, which can be used to make sure heroin and other drugs aren't contaminated by fentanyl, blamed for many drug overdose deaths • Have condoms, cotton balls and a cooker for using heroin, taking the place of using a dirty spoon that might be used over and over again Visitors also get access to peer support services and to help with other problems addicts can encounter, such as sexually transmitted diseases. They can obtain naloxone for reviving people who have suffered a drug overdose. And when they are ready to seek treatment and deal with their substance abuse problems, they have a place they can go to begin the road to recovery. The harm reduction clinic is open to people from Erie County and other nearby counties, not just Lorain County residents. "Our end goal is to get them to go to treatment," said Leigh Limongi, a certified peer recovery supporter with Let's Get Real, a peer support group in Lorain similar to the Sandusky Artisans Recovery Community Center group. "We've been there. I'm a recovering addict." Helping those in need The harm reduction clinic is run by the Nord Center, a behavioral health agency in Lorain, in cooperation with Lorain County Public Health and other local agencies. The theory is that addicts are unlikely to stop using until they obtain treatment, so it makes sense to try to limit the damage they do to themselves and to others until they can be persuaded to seek treatment, center CEO Don Schiffbauer said. "They're going to use illicit drugs whether they have clean needles or not," Schiffbauer said. The current location for the harm reduction clinic opened in November 2021. Since then, the clinic has served 256 different clients with 1,420 needle exchange encounters resulting in more than 19,000 needles exchanged. The clinic operates with an annual budget of about $70,000 with some of the salary costs covered by the agencies providing support. Dennis Cauchon is the president and founder of Harm Reduction Ohio, a state organization that advocates for harm reduction efforts. Cauchon said about 25 of Ohio's 88 Ohio counties have needle exchange programs. Because such programs tend to be concentrated in the more populous counties, the programs reach about 60% of Ohio's population, Cauchon said. People are more likely to seek treatment for substance abuse problems when they are treated with love and respect at harm reduction clinics, Cauchon said. Law enforcement agencies support the efforts when they realize a clean needle exchange lessens the chance officers will be stabbed by a dirty needle when they need to search someone, Cauchon said. "It's for their own safety as well," he said. Clients at the Nord Center's harm reduction clinic get cards they can show to officers of the Lorain Police Department. The police have agreed not to arrest anyone found with clean needles, but the cards won't protect anyone carrying drugs from arrest, the staff explained. Schiffbauer said local support has been key to being able to operate the clinic. Lorain's mayor, Jack Bradley, sits on a board of advisers for the clinic. The support of Lorain County Public Health has been particularly crucial. By law, a needle exchange program can't operate without the support of a local health department, Cauchon said. Will it happen here? While the Erie County Health Department has been aggressive in giving away naloxone, the department has not supported a needle exchange. Pete Schade, Erie County's health commissioner, said he has looked at a possible needle exchange program and rejected backing one so far. "I just haven't been sold on the project," he said. Schade said doing such a program right would involve having needle exchange programs in communities such as Huron and Vermilion, not just Sandusky, and would therefore be expensive. Schade said that when he decided the health department should give away large amounts of naloxone for free, to save the lives of overdose victims, he spent considerable time going to township, village and city meetings to sell the program. To go back to those groups and advocate for a program that lets addicts do drugs more safely, "I don't know how I'm going to win that argument," Schade said. Many addicts die from overdose deaths because they pass out when they are alone and are found dead when it's too late to revive them. As a result, health agencies in some cities around the world have experimented with supervised drug-use sites, where addicts can inject their drugs and be revived if they overdose. While New York City has such sites, attempts to set up the sites in other U.S. cities have often been blocked. Supervised drug use sites by contrast have become relatively common in Europe and in Canada. Schiffbauer said he's not ready to try to bring a supervised drug use site to Lorain. "We have not looked at it yet. It's on our radar," he said.