Portland city councilors have approved a year-long needle buyback program using opioid settlement funds.
The program will pay people five cents for each used syringe that's returned to the city. City Councilor April Fournier said there will be a $10 daily cap per person, among other limitations.
"The program cap is 50 people who can participate. There's a maximum amount of what can be turned in per day," she said. "There's a maximum amount that we would anticipate that could go out for this program, so it's not that we're going to open the floodgates and let's see what we get."
More than $1.3 million in opioid settlement funds will pay for the buyback program, as well as a day space for unhoused people who are not using the municipal homeless shelter but need access to showers, food and social services. The settlement funds will also pay for a methadone treatment program.
"I think the syringe exchange program, buyback program, is a proven mechanism to reduce needle waste," said Dr. Doctor Kevin Sullivan with Greater Portland Health, who treats patients at the city's municipal homeless shelter. "It also empowers those who might otherwise not have access to an income to be able to care for themselves and provide for themselves."
Portland currently distributes as many as 100 clean needles for every used one returned, complying with a state law that was changed two years ago.
The council on Monday night also rejected a proposal from Mayor Mark Dion, which would have returned to a one to one exchange ratio, following more than an hour of public comment from physicians, homeless advocates and others.
At the same city council meeting on Monday, Dion issued an apology for his vote to divest city affairs from companies doing business with Israel.
City councilors unanimously approved the resolution last month. The city of Portland does not have any direct funds to divest. And city councilors and Dion himself said last month that the resolution was largely symbolic and a way to send a message.
"Since passage of the resolution, I've come to realize that all it did accomplish was to marginalize Portland's Jewish community," Dion said.
He said municipal government should not take a stand on foreign policy matters and added that the divestment vote was "wrong."
