Chair Cabán on syringe redemption baselining and SAMHSA harm reduction cuts
Cabán asks about transitioning the syringe redemption pilot to permanent. Martin and Aaron confirm baseline funding has been secured. Cabán also asks about SAMHSA guidance eliminating federal funding for fentanyl test strips; Walton says providers are using DOHMH and state opioid settlement funds for test strips.
And are you considering, I just want to go to now the syringe redemption pilot for a second, are you considering transitioning it from pilot status into a permanent program?
The Syringe Redemption Pilot Program was, from our standpoint, a huge success.
As you know, over 1.7 million syringes picked up.
We're not just doing community safety in that action.
We're also paying people.
They get up to $10 a day, and the vast majority of those folks are using that money to pay for food and other basic necessities.
And so from our standpoint, this is a huge, huge success.
Let me hand it over to Aaron to talk about the funding piece.
Yeah, this is something we're really excited about from this executive budget, which is baseline funding for the syringe redemption program.
That's great.
And then I'm assuming that there's no information around whether you're considering transferring that.
Pilot or that program to the Office of Community Safety.
So I'll just put it on the record, but as an outstanding question we have about that office.
My last question has to do with the SAM HSA updated guidance on funding for harm reduction.
So in this past April, the guidance basically eliminated federal funding eligibility for fentanyl and like different test strips, overdose hotlines, other harm reduction supplies that obviously many providers.
Rely on and use.
Have you guys assessed how much federal funding New York City supported providers stand to lose as a result of those changes and does the exec budget include any city funds to backfill those losses and maintain that part of the overdose prevention service?
Thanks for that question.
I'm going to hand it to Dr.
Rebecca Lynn Walton on this.
Yeah, so this was one way in which people were somewhat protected that they weren't using SAMHSA funding for this.
I know the state has decided to use opioid settlement funds to fund test strips.
Our providers are using our funding that we're giving them for test strips.
And so we've been working with our providers so that we can figure out how to help them shift because we don't want anyone to need a test strip and not have access to it.
We also provide them as part of our naloxone kits as well.
Okay, great.
Thank you.
And thank you, Chair.