article_snippet.sent: (CNN)If someone told you that your city had started a program providing clean needles to injecting drug users, would that make you want to start injecting drugs yourself?
article_snippet.sent: Yet for decades, many have stood by the belief that such programs, known as syringe exchange or syringe services programs, promote and encourage drug use.
article_snippet.sent: And this time, scientific evidence and sound public health practices prevailed as both states authorized the implementation of syringe exchange programs to help curb the spread of these two blood-borne diseases that can be spread by contaminated syringes.
article_snippet.sent: With such numbers in mind, the recent national spotlight on syringe services programs offers a critical opportunity for us to reignite a much-needed conversation.
article_snippet.sent: In addition to helping curb the spread of these diseases by offering access to sterile syringes, how effective syringe services programs promote public health and safety by taking syringes off the streets and protecting law enforcement personnel and others, including children, from injuries.
article_snippet.sent: taking syringes off the streets and protecting law enforcement personnel and others, including children, from injuries also offer preventive health services, such as HIV testing and counseling, and form vital bridges to drug treatment, overdose prevention, housing and employment services.
article_snippet.sent: Washington was the first state in the United States to implement an syringe exchange when an syringe exchange opened a syringe services program in Tacoma in 1988.
article_snippet.sent: Despite such evidence, syringe services programs are continually caught in the political crossfire.
article_snippet.sent: Without access to federal funding, more than 200 syringe service programs in 34 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico are operating on shoestring budgets from local and state governments.
article_snippet.sent: This has forced syringe services programs across Puerto Rico to cut staff, scale down services and potentially shut their doors for good.