PORTLAND — A plan by Oregon’s largest county to distribute tin foil and straws for fentanyl users and glass pipes for methamphetamine and crack users has been halted after opposition from Portland’s mayor and other officials.
“Our health department went forward with this proposal without proper implementation protocols,” Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson said in a statement to KGW-TV. “And in that light, I am suspending the program pending further analysis.”
The Multnomah County Health Department earlier this month updated its harm reduction program to include the distribution of smoking materials to people using drugs after noticing a drop in the number of drug users who sought out clean syringes from county workers. The workers also provide the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan and attempt to point users to possible treatment options.
“If they’re not coming into any health services at all, if we’re not engaging them at all, quite honestly people die in the shadows,” Jessica Guernsey, Multnomah County’s public health director, told KGW-TV, “and that’s what we’re trying to avoid.”
