A Bangor nonprofit is working to become a certified distributor of clean syringes to keep people who use drugs safe, but the city is opposed to where the organization wants to offer those services.
Earlier this month, Maine CDC approved the Needlepoint Sanctuary’s request to become a certified mobile syringe service provider. Providers offer people who inject drugs clean syringes to protect them from contracting bloodborne diseases, such as HIV and hepatitis C, from used or shared contaminated syringes.
The proposal from Needlepoint Sanctuary comes at a time when five new HIV cases have appeared among people who inject drugs in Penobscot County since late 2023, a 300 percent increase over the expected yearly total, according to Maine CDC.
Bangor has two other certified syringe service programs, Bangor Health Equity Alliance and Wabanaki Public Health and Wellness — the only ones in Penobscot County. Together, those organizations distributed more than 672,000 clean syringes and collected nearly 751,600 used ones in 2022, according to the Maine Drug Data Hub.
In its application to Maine CDC, Needlepoint Sanctuary proposed offering three mobile syringe service locations, which will operate out of vehicles, in Bangor. Those locations are Pickering Square, Pierce Park next to the Bangor Public Library, and at the intersection of Texas Avenue and University Drive, near the city’s largest homeless encampment.
The group identified those locations as areas where people who use drugs tend to gather and spend time, said William Hurley, executive director of Needlepoint Sanctuary.
The city, however, opposed the group’s idea of distributing services in those areas and “was not contacted or consulted as to whether or not the identified locations would be appropriate within our community,” Debbie Laurie, Bangor’s city manager wrote in a memo to councilors.
“Ensuring equitable access to our public spaces has been a sentiment shared by our residents, visitors, businesses and members of the City Council,” Laurie wrote. “While a [syringe service provider] does not result in syringe waste per se, as a community the amount of syringe waste within our public spaces presents a public health risk to all.”
In July 2023, the city council approved giving Bangor Health Equity Alliance $29,000 to hire a part-time employee tasked with picking up needle waste in the city for one year, as used needles in public spaces are a health risk.
Councilors said on Monday that while they support harm reduction and believe it’s effective, they don’t believe public parks like Pierce Park and Pickering Square are appropriate places to offer those services. They’ve also heard from numerous residents who don’t feel safe in those areas.
“Both [Pickering Square and Pierce Park] are child- and family-centric locations, and have been for a long time,” Councilor Gretchen Schaefer said on Monday. “I’ve heard the argument that you go where people are using to meet the need, but what happens if people start using in the little league fields between Fairmount and 14th Street? I think we need to set up some controls to make sure that we keep our drug-free zones as drug free as possible.”
The city also objected to the group’s alternative locations: the Bangor Waterfront and Abbott Square, which is across the street from the library. Instead, the city suggested other locations on private property, which the Maine CDC is “committed to follow up on promptly,” Laurie said.
For five years, the volunteer-run Needlepoint Sanctuary has distributed clean syringes and collected used ones, given free naloxone and offered other resources in various locations throughout Bangor, including Pickering Square and Pierce Park. Hurley said the group’s mission is to reduce the harm associated with drug use and lower overdose rates.
Hurley said becoming a certified syringe service provider largely won’t change the work that the group has done for years, other than operating out of vehicles rather than at folding tables in the community. Becoming a certified syringe service provider would mean the group works with the state to offer resources and carry out the state’s Opioid Response Strategic Plan rather than acting independently.
“In our history, we’ve given tens of thousands of doses of naloxone, and we know our naloxone has reversed more than 1,000 overdoses in the last five years,” Hurley said. “Our services are urgently needed.”
Prior to Maine decriminalizing possessing hypodermic needles in 2021, Hurley said getting a state certification protected the group from legal trouble.
In 2019, Bangor police charged two Needlepoint Sanctuary volunteers who were handing out clean syringes in Pickering Square, as police said they were operating a needle exchange without a state permit.
