Full Article by Tim Murphy | TheBody In 2021, West Virginia passed some of the harshest syringe access restrictions in the country, setting off a wave of program shutdowns and legal uncertainty. For organizations like SOAR WV, the result was a sharp reduction in services—and a steep rise in community Read more…
Full Story by Danielle Dindak | WCHS TV A new West Virginia law—Senate Bill 334—and a city ordinance in Charleston are sending shockwaves through the state’s harm reduction community. As the law imposes strict requirements on syringe service programs, including one-to-one exchanges, state ID checks, and multi-service offerings, public health Read more…
Full Article by June Leffler | WV Public Broadcasting Charleston City Council passed a new ordinance restricting syringe service programs—even more tightly than state law. The new rules require programs to host public neighborhood meetings, collect 90% of distributed syringes, and face misdemeanor charges for noncompliance. The CDC and public Read more…
Full Article by Kyle Vass | Dragline (powered by ACLU-WV) ACLU-WV’s Dragline published a powerful deep-dive titled “Politics of Harm Reduction: HIV outbreak in W.Va.’s capital shows police and politicians can’t replace doctors and public health experts.” The article, written by Kyle Vass and edited by Lacey Johnson, reveals in Read more…
Full Article by Eric Eyre | Mountain State Spotlight As the pandemic forced support groups and treatment centers to scale back, West Virginia’s overdose death toll surged by over 40%—one of the sharpest spikes in the country. The CDC’s early data shows 1,147 lives lost in just 12 months, erasing Read more…
Full Article by Dan Vergano | BuzzFeed News “It’s a public health disaster.” Amid the worst HIV outbreak in the nation, Charleston’s grassroots harm reduction group SOAR is under legal fire. Instead of expanding needle exchange programs, West Virginia lawmakers are moving to criminalize them — defying CDC guidance and Read more…
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — For years, West Virginia has had the nation’s highest rate of opioid drug addictions and drug overdose deaths. Now the state is wrestling with another, not entirely unrelated health emergency: one of the nation’s highest spikes in HIV cases related to intravenous drug use. The surge, Read more…
Full Article by Lauren Peace | Mountain State Spotlight Charleston’s HIV outbreak is now one of the most concerning in the nation, according to the CDC — with Kanawha County recording nearly as many injection-related HIV cases in 2020 as New York City, a place nearly 50 times larger. The Read more…
Full Article by Caity Coyne | Charleston Gazette-Mail Needle exchange is a hot topic again in Charleston with the City Council expected to vote in upcoming weeks on an amendment that would criminalize needle distribution. Here are answers to common questions about needle exchange programs based both on interviews with Read more…
Full Article by Lauren Peace | Mountain State Spotlight As Charleston debates the future of syringe service programs, Mountain State Spotlight highlights what public health experts — and frontline organizations like SOAR WV — want everyone to know: syringe access saves lives and builds bridges to recovery. At a recent Read more…