The Portland City Council on Monday rejected a resolution proposed by Mayor Mark Dion that was aimed at reducing the number of hypodermic needles littered throughout the city by reimplementing a 1:1 ratio at the city’s syringe exchange program.

Portland’s Syringe Services Program (SSP), commonly referred to as “The Exchange,” is part of a statewide “harm reduction” program overseen by the Maine CDC that distributes hypodermic needles to people who inject drugs.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Maine CDC had rules in place that required SPP participants to exchange used needles for sterile syringes at a 1:1 ratio.

Current Maine CDC guidelines, however, allow for the syringe exchanges to distribute up to 100 needles for every one needle that they collect.

The resolution debated by the Council on Monday would have called on City Manager Danielle West and city staff to reimplement the 1:1 needle exchange ratio at the SSP that was in place prior to the pandemic, effective 45 days after the passage of the resolution.

City data shows that Portland’s syringe exchange program distributed about 250,000 more needles than they collected in 2023.

Mayor Dion cited this figure in his op-ed, published in the Portland Press Herald last month, as causing a “constant tide of needle waste” that has put the city’s residents at risk.

The City Council heard over an hour of public comment on the mayor’s proposed reform to the syringe exchange program, with opponents of the resolution arguing that the 1:1 exchange ratio would increase the risk of transmission of blood-borne diseases.

“A 1:1 exchange rate proposal will increase health risks among many members of the community, especially the most vulnerable people in our community,” said Julie Orrego, advocacy supervisor at the Portland-based social services and shelter nonprofit Preble Street.

“Providing adequate supplies of clean needles is a harm reduction principle that the city has prioritized for nearly 30 years,” Orrego said, adding that the 1:1 requirement might discourage drug users from using the syringe exchange program altogether.

Louis Fournier, a Portland resident and plumber, showed the City Council a box of 11 used needles and 48 needle caps he said he collected during his service calls throughout the city on Monday alone.

“I think what happened here is the needles have supercharged people just littering,” Fournier said. “I’m no expert, but here’s what I do know — it just seems that as a community we keep pandering to this entitled segment of the population that thinks we need to do something for them.”

“I really feel like we need to focus in on what is good for the community,” Fournier said in support of Dion’s resolution.

One argument often presented by proponents of the syringe exchange programs is that the program offers an opportunity for people addicted to drugs to connect with other services, such as testing for blood-borne diseases, naloxone distribution, wound care and mental health treatment.

Dion said during discussion of the resolution that the number one referral made by staff at the syringe exchange was for food assistance, not for recovery or counseling services.

“When I looked at this idea of referral, the primary referral that was made by our SSP program was for food,” Dion said.

“I was naive — I thought I would see referral, as one person characterized it, ‘a warm handoff’ to a recovery specialist, or a detox service, or some manner of help that would help address the underlying disease pattern,” Dion said. “But that wasn’t the case.”

“It’s not about stigmatizing,” Dion added. “But I do have concerns that people fail to recognize that the community pays for what we do, and they don’t feel heard.”

City Councilor Anna Bullett said that while she agrees needle waste is a “serious concern” that must be addressed, she does not believe “that limiting the needle exchange ratio will do anything to improve needle waste.”

“People who inject drugs are members of our community as much as people who own building are,” Bullett said.

City Councilor April Fournier, chair of the Council’s Health and Human Services and Public Safety Committee, said that the frustration of residents who see needles littering their neighborhoods is a “valid concern.”

“I absolutely recognize this is a crisis, we need to make sure that we’re addressing it,” Fournier said. “But I just don’t believe that restricting access without having all of the facts and information, and having actual solutions, will help our community and help those that are most in need.”

Councilor Anna Trevorrow told Mayor Dion that the proposed resolution would be stigmatizing, based on what she said was “drawing a negative judgment from anecdotal evidence.”

“To me, it is very harmful when we set policy — we’re a policy making body, and if we are going to honor stigma in our decisions about what policies we write, then we write discriminatory policies,” Trevorrow said.

“It’s not about stigma, it’s about reality sometimes,” Dion quipped after Trevorrow’s comments.

The City Council voted 7 to 1 to shoot down the proposed resolution, with Mayor Dion being the only affirmative vote.

Councilors Fournier, Trevorrow, Bullett, Roberto Rodriguez, Kate Sykes, Pious Ali and Regina Phillips all voted against the resolution.

Later in the meeting the City Council unanimously approved an allocation of roughly $1.38 million in opioid settlement funds towards three different public health initiatives related to the opioid crisis.

The first of the initiatives is  is a pilot “syringe buyback” program, which would involve the city’s syringe exchange program paying drug users cash when they return used syringes.

The “buyback” program would be modeled after similar programs implemented in Boston and New York City, and would involve a payout of five cents per used syringe returned to the exchange.

As proposed, the buyback program would be a year-long pilot beginning in January 2025, and would be funded by $52,000 — allowing for roughly one million used syringes to be bought back by the city.

Two other uses for the funds approved by the City Council on Monday involve the creation of a “low-barrier” daytime homeless shelter, and providing funding for an on-peninsula methadone clinic in Portland to treat opioid withdrawal.