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Community needle exchange and clean-needle programs have the support of New Orleans officials to help combat hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS transmissions as part of the city?s ramped-up efforts against opioid overdoses.

The New Orleans City Council approved a measure Dec. 14 that updates the city?s rules governing drug paraphernalia, which previously banned syringes and needles for nonmedical purposes. But Louisiana lawmakers and Gov. John Bel Edwards recently retooled*drug paraphernalia*rules statewide by allowing syringes for "for bona fide medical" use and giving local governments the ability to establish clean needle programs.

That rule effectively brings a formerly ?underground? nonprofit network servicing hundreds of people in the metro area into a legal framework, potentially institutionalizing a service that has operated in a legally gray area while saving thousands of lives.

?We should not condemn people who have infectious disease because they have the disease of addiction,? said New Orleans Health Department Director Joseph Kanter.

Though the ordinance primarily is designed to protect needle programs and people using them, it also allows people with a prescription for medical marijuana to possess drug paraphernalia for that purpose ? a measure that lines up with the state's in-progress plans for a medical marijuana program.
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