PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker said she will focus on care, treatment and housing to address the opioid epidemic — but she won’t put any city money into needle exchanges.
Philadelphia is receiving about $10 million a year from a settlement with opioid manufacturers and sellers, some of which goes toward the Overdose Prevention and Community Healing Fund. Parker told the nonprofit overseeing the fund not to give any of the money to needle exchange programs — though she does not oppose them.
“Nothing about that work will stop, it just won’t be funded by the City of Philadelphia,” she said, “but there is room for the philanthropic community, for the business community to support those efforts.”
The fund had been providing modest money to three programs, but Parker said she prefers the city’s limited resources go toward long-term care, treatment and housing for people suffering from abuse disorder.
“They won’t be focused on tiny houses. They’re going to be focused on providing dignity to people,” she added.
Needle exchange programs are technically illegal in Pennsylvania, but Philadelphia officially embraced them in the ’90s, when they acted as a bulwark against the spread of AIDS through needle-sharing by IV drug users. One study estimated the programs save 1,000 cases a year.
Advocates of harm reduction efforts, such as needle exchanges, protested at City Hall Thursday morning. They’re worried that the shift in funding signals a broader move away from harm reduction.