Canada: Needle Exchanges Jump Among Guelph's Local Drug Users

Guelph public health officials are monitoring a 75 percent increase in the number of needles handed out at local needle exchanges in the first three months of this year compared to the same period in 2005. Nearly 6,000 needles were exchanged in the first quarter of 2006, up from almost 3,500 for the same period last year.

But officials are not investigating the surge in demand for fear of violating the privacy of needle exchange clients. "What would happen with that is that they would go underground. Because they don't want to be hassled, they would find another [outlet] or they would start sharing, using needles that are not appropriate," said Elaine Scott, who works in adolescent and sexual health programs at Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.

"While we're taking notice, and we're interested, I'm not feeling like it's something that I have to somehow institute some kind of measures to try and get to the bottom of this," Scott said.

"It's a positive thing if it's just more people accessing the services and making sure they're using clean equipment, or it could be a bad thing that more people are using drugs. I kind of doubt that's the case," said B.J. Caldwell, who does HIV/AIDS prevention work at the AIDS Committee of Guelph and Wellington County, one of the six needle exchange sites run by the public health unit. Caldwell's site has not posted an increase in numbers, staff there said.

This summer, the public health unit will participate in a federally funded study of local drug users to determine whether the services are adequate or need improvement. Such surveillance, said Caldwell, "would be a really useful tool."

Back to other news for May 9, 2006