Activists in Charleston called on Mayor Amy Goodwin to declare a public health emergency. Some health providers and church leaders say the city needs to better address a cluster of HIV cases as well as the rise in opioid overdose Read more…
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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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 Read more…