The fight over giving out needles to drug users in Pa., explained in 9 numbers

This story first appeared in The Investigator, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA featuring the best investigative and accountability journalism from across Pennsylvania. Sign up for free here.

HARRISBURG — About a year ago, Spotlight PA and WESA started looking into a conflicting part of Pennsylvania’s opioid windfall.

The multibillion dollar settlements that attorneys general reached with drug companies say expanding syringe services should be a priority for the money. But those programs are widely considered illegal in most of Pennsylvania under our drug paraphernalia law.

Supporters say these programs help connect people with treatment and make communities safer by reducing the presence of discarded needles. Some lawmakers in Harrisburg have raised concerns that the programs condone illegal drug use or fail to make communities safer.

Here are the figures that stand out from the coverage, and what they show:

1 — Republican lawmaker who voted in favor of a syringe services legalization bill during a committee vote in February. That lawmaker, state Rep. Jim Rigby of Cambria County, has talked about how serving as a police chief influenced his position .

“They don’t prepare you to go tell a mother and father their child is dead from an overdose,” he told Spotlight PA. “… If we save one, that’s a start, so I’m ready to make that start.”

The bill, which passed out of committee with unanimous Democratic support , awaits action in the full House.

3 — Pennsylvania counties (Cambria, Crawford, and Luzerne) flagged in a nationwide assessment of communities potentially vulnerable to the rapid spread of HIV and to new or continuing high rates of hepatitis C infections among people who inject drugs.

5 times — how much more likely new users of a needle exchange were to enter drug treatment, compared to similar individuals who had never used an exchange, according to a widely cited 2000 study.

8 times — how many more improperly disposed of syringes researchers found during walkthroughs in a city without needle and syringe programs, compared to a city with them, according to a 2012 study cited by the CDC.

38 — states that explicitly or implicitly authorize syringe services through statute or regulation, according to a survey last year from the Legislative Analysis and Public Policy Association , a nonprofit group that researches laws nationwide. Pennsylvania is not one of them.

$150,000 — how much opioid settlement funding was pulled from a nonprofit in Western Pennsylvania late last year based on concerns over syringe services.

1992 — the year then-Mayor Ed Rendell, a Democrat, issued an executive order to allow syringe services in Philadelphia.

2008 – the year Allegheny County Council adopted a needle exchange ordinance .

$325,000 — how much opioid settlement money Allegheny County reported dedicating to supporting “access to sterile syringes and other safer drug use supplies,” as of the end of last year .

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