“My home state can do better.” Biden’s drug czar says West Virginia’s harm reduction program needs work

West Virginia welcomed Dr. Rahul Gupta warmly last week. From speaking at a Martinsburg community college to touring the newly-renovated West Virginia Health Right free clinic, the Biden administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy director and former West Virginia health officer was commended at events across the state.

That sentiment was on full display in the state Capitol Friday afternoon, where Gupta hosted a roundtable with elected officials and health workers.

“By helping areas that are struggling the most, you are shaping the future and bringing hope … to countless West Virginians,” said Jim Strawn, a spokesperson for Sen. Joe Manchin.

Gupta was quick to return the praise. He nodded as those attending shared different projects to address the state’s overdose epidemic, from keeping the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone in more public spaces to working on ways for people to more easily maintain addiction treatment after leaving jail.

But he identified one major gap in West Virginia’s overdose prevention response: state laws that make it difficult for people with addictions to get clean syringes and needles.

In 2021, West Virginia lawmakers passed a law that instructs syringe service programs to only serve people who have valid West Virginia IDs and return their used needles. It also requires programs to provide many other harm reduction services, and it makes them obtain yearly city council and county commission approval.

The state’s approach runs contrary to model law that Gupta’s office released that same year. The model cites West Virginia’s law as harmful for the state’s syringe service programs and their “provision of vital health resources.”

At the Capitol roundtable, Joe Solomon, a Charleston City Council member and co-director of a former private syringe service program in Kanawha County, asked Gupta how state health leaders should go about providing clean needles and syringes.

In that setting, Gupta spoke about the importance of needle exchange programs and highlighted the hundreds of millions of federal dollars available for states to run those programs. But after finishing his three Friday events, Gupta went further in an interview with Mountain State Spotlight.

“It makes me feel like my home state can do better,” Gupta said shortly after concluding his final talk of the day at West Virginia State University. “We can do more.”

He emphasized that one law doesn’t take away from other ambitious projects to curb West Virginia’s opioid epidemic. Gupta praised WVSU’s collegiate recovery program and a recent successful effort by state lawmakers to legalize drug testing strips .

But he noted that there are other areas where West Virginia could improve its substance use disorder response.

“Is syringe service program law one of those? You bet,” Gupta said, noting that the health services also reduce infectious disease spread and connect people with addiction treatment . “That’s very clear.”

At the Capitol roundtable, two West Virginia state legislators spoke about their role in maintaining the state’s syringe service laws. Sen. Vince Deeds, R-Greenbrier, said he and the other senators would continue to write and adjust laws that help West Virginians with substance use disorder.

“There really is, in our chamber, a desire to get it right,” he said at the event.

Deeds was the lead sponsor of the bill that decriminalized drug testing strips, but he and the other senators also unanimously passed a law to further restrict syringe service programs from distributing safe drug materials last March. He didn’t respond to phone calls and an email asking whether the roundtable affected his thoughts on West Virginia’s needle exchange legislation.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, put more of the blame on him and his fellow legislators for West Virginians syringe service law.

“In regards to public health, we should really try to keep politics out of it,” he said at the roundtable. “And that didn’t happen with that particular element of harm reduction in this state.”

Looking forward, Gupta said the Biden Administration will continue to try to reduce overdose deaths, a crisis that appears to be slightly improved after reaching record heights in the early 2020s.

In the months preceding the impending presidential change, he said his office will focus on destigmatizing and improving access to naloxone, making addiction health care easier to maintain for people after they leave prison and working with Customs and Border Protection to stop illicit drugs from entering the U.S.

While Gupta acknowledged there are areas where the federal government could improve its overdose crisis response, he said his office was working on a lot of “cutting-edge” harm reduction work, like coordinating with public insurance programs to find new ways to fund these programs.

That work, however, will only be as effective as states let it be, according to Gupta.

“I certainly don’t want West Virginia to miss out on that.”

“My home state can do better.” Biden’s drug czar says West Virginia’s harm reduction program needs work appeared first on Mountain State Spotlight , West Virginia's civic newsroom.