CHARLESTON, W.Va. — “Unfortunate” was how the acting assistant secretary for mental health and substance use in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, described attempts in West Virginia to regulate harm reduction programs.
“Someone can’t get into recovery if they’re dead,” said Tom Coderre during his closing comments at Wednesday’s virtual and inaugural Reducing Risk in Higher Education Symposium.
“We need to meet people where they are. We need to give them the help that they need and we need to look at those things as important interventions to help connect people to treatment.”
Coderre delivered the keynote address to open the symposium.
The event was designed to highlight resources available to higher education institutions in West Virginia in support of substance use prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery.
Hosts included the Alliance for the Economic Development of Southern West Virginia, West Virginia Collegiate Recovery Network, West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission, West Virginia Community and Technical College System and other members of the West Virginia Higher Education Substance Use Disorder Continuum of Care Collaborative.
“SAMSHA’s mission is to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America’s communities and you have a partner in us as far as collegiate recovery’s concerned,” Coderre said.
He told attendees about his own path to recovery.
“The reason I am so public about my recovery is I think it is an important thing, for those of us who it makes sense to do, to be public about it, to break down some of those negative public attitudes and to be able to make people really feel that there’s hope,” Coderre said.
Susie Mullens, program coordinator for the West Virginia Collegiate Recovery Network, said she appreciated Coderre’s participation.
“We’re really dealing with a lot of stigma and we’re struggling in West Virginia right now with the harm reduction issue,” Mullens said.
A bill now in the West Virginia House Health and Human Resources Committee would create a licensing program in the state Department of Health and Human Resources for harm reduction programs with syringe exchanges.
The Senate passed SB 334 last week with a vote of 22-11.
The licensing requirement, with additional conditions including approval from county commissions and county sheriffs and one-to-one syringe exchanges, would apply to both new and existing programs.
Opponents of the proposed legislation have said the standards were too high and would effectively end syringe programs across West Virginia.
“I’m really afraid for the impact that that’s going to have on individuals,” Mullens told Coderre.
The Cabell-County Health Department started the first such harm reduction program in 2015 in response to growing hepatitis C and HIV cases linked to the opioid crisis. At one point, Cabell County was dealing with an HIV outbreak.
Similar programs have been implemented in other areas.
Health Right has a program in Charleston. One run through the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department ended in 2018.
In February of this year, officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called an HIV outbreak in Kanawha County “the most concerning in the United States” and recommended a syringe program as key to addressing that.
At least 35 HIV cases in Kanawha County were linked to drug use in 2020, the state Department of Health and Human Resources reported.
On Tuesday, Coderre noted $30 million was allocated to SAMHSA in the American Rescue Plan, the federal pandemic relief package, for harm reduction programs.
“The new administration has a really big focus on this and you’ll be hearing a lot more from us on harm reduction so, hopefully, that will support your local efforts when you can point to some of the national work that’s being done,” Coderre said.