European heroin users are on high alert as the death toll rises from heroin tainted with anthrax. At least eight people have died -- seven in Scotland and one in Germany -- since early December, and another 14 Scottish heroin users have been hospitalized after being diagnosed with anthrax. Meanwhile, drug reform and drug user activists are reporting a cluster of nine suspicious heroin-related deaths in Coimbra, Portugal, although it is unclear at this point whether they are linked to anthrax-tainted heroin.

anthrax spores

The first four Scottish deaths were in Glasgow, but after one person died in Tayside and one in the Forth Valley earlier this month, Health Protection Scotland epidemiologist Dr. Colin Ramsay said: "The death of this patient in NHS Forth Valley indicates further geographical spread of the cases, meaning that heroin users all across Scotland need to be aware of the risks of a potentially contaminated supply. I would urge all users to stop using heroin immediately and contact local drug support services for help in stopping. If any heroin users do notice signs of infection, for example marked redness and swelling around an injection site or other signs of serious infection such as a high fever, they should seek urgent medical advice."

The French government has also reacted, with the General Directorate for Health issuing a statement Tuesday warning that contaminated heroin may be circulating in France and other European countries. Noting the rising death toll, the statement said "the likeliest source is heroin contaminated by anthrax spores."

Heroin users should be alert, the French statement said, because heroin contaminated with anthrax is indistinguishable from other heroin. "There is no outward sign or color enabling the user to tell whether the heroin has been contaminated by anthrax, and contaminated heroin dissolves or is used in the same way as uncontaminated heroin," it said.

Anthrax is a potentially lethal bacterium that exists naturally in the soil and can also occur among cattle. It is also a potential bio-terror weapon.

The vast majority of heroin consumed in Europe comes from Afghanistan, and while so far evidence is lacking, speculation is that anthrax spores may have been present in bone meal, an animal product sometimes used as a cutting agent. Another possibility is that containers used in the heroin production process were contaminated with anthrax spores. And, given fears that Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies could resort to biological warfare against the West and given the Taliban's role in the Afghan opium and heroin trade, a bio-attack cannot be completely ruled out.

"The anthrax-infected heroin hasn't decreased use, whether people are injecting it or chasing [smoking] it," said Tam Miller, chair of Chemical Reaction, an Edinburgh drug user group, and a member of INPUD (the International Network of People who Use Drugs). "People are scared -- you can be sure of that -- but I think they're more afraid of withdrawing. The Scottish government's advice was for people to stop using heroin, but that won't happen."

Instead, Miller said, heroin users are doing what they can to protect themselves. "Users feel there's not much they can do personally and, as usual, they feel isolated," he said. "A lot are looking up the effects on anthrax on the net and passing on information to people with no internet access. We think the powers that be should put out information on how to spot signs if someone has been in contact with access. Basically, mate, the Scottish government wants little to do with it."

The Scottish government's response so far has drawn a harsh rebuke from the United Kingdom's harm reduction and public health community. In a Tuesday letter to the Scottish government, the International Harm Reduction Association, the drug think tank Release, the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, the UK Harm Reduction Alliance, and individual public health experts called on the government to put in place an emergency public health plan to deal with the crisis.

The letter said the government's advice to heroin users to stop using and enter treatment was "reckless in light of the fact that waiting times in Scotland for opiate substitute treatment (OST) are the longest in the UK. Many of those accessing services are informed that it is a condition of their treatment to engage with the service for a minimum period of time, before they will be entitled to a prescription offering an alternative substitute medication, usually methadone. In some areas of Scotland we have been informed that waiting times for OST can be up to 12 months."

[There is another potential issue with methadone, as well. The antibiotic drug Cipro, used to treat anthrax, interacts with methadone, leading to the possibility of methadone overdoses.]

Given the reality of treatment shortages and delays, it is "unacceptable" for the Scottish government to just tell users to stop or to go to treatment that isn't there, the letter said. "It is clear that this kind of approach can only lead to the death of more vulnerable people."

Instead, the Scottish government must immediately implement a public health plan that includes rapid access and low-threshold prescribing of alternatives to street heroin, the letter-writers advised. They recommended prescribing dihydrocodeine, a synthetic opiate approximately twice as strong as codeine. It is sold in the US under brand names including Panlor, Paracodin, and Synalgos.

"Such an approach will go some way to prevent any more loss of life and will provide greater protection to the public as a whole," the letter said. "Failure to adopt such a policy would mean that the Scottish state would be failing in its duty to its citizens."

Joep Oomen of the European Coalition for Just and Effective Drug Policies (ENCOD) had another suggestion. "The only decent reaction to this kind of episode is to immediately open facilities where people can test their heroin and where they can use in safe conditions, supervised by people who can help if anything goes wrong," he said.

"Hopefully, in the longer term, because of these incidents, authorities will start to see the need for introducing heroin maintenance programs, not as a trial for a limited group of people, but as a permanent service for all those who cannot abstain from heroin for a longer period of time," he added.

Ultimately, said Oomen, prohibition is the problem. "Adulteration is a practice that belongs to the illegal market," he said. "It happens because the people who control the heroin market have no interest at all in the health of their customers."

Dr. Sharon Stancliff of the US Harm Reduction Coalition agreed with her colleagues' assessment of the Scottish government's response. "Telling people to stop is not useful information," she said. "Maybe some occasional users will have a glass of wine instead, but if people are sick and treatment is limited, telling people that heroin is bad for them isn't going to have much impact," she explained.

"At this point, the European harm reduction people should be getting the word out, and the medical people over there need to be on the alert," she added.

Stancliff said she had seen no sign of heroin contaminated with anthrax on this side of the Atlantic, but she was worried. "I hope the DEA is out there buying heroin to see what's in it," she said. "If there is any hint of it here, physicians should be alerted by the Centers for Disease Control as they were with levamisole-tainted cocaine."

If the anthrax-contaminated heroin is coming from Afghanistan, as most heroin consumed in Europe does, US heroin users may catch a break. Most heroin consumed here is of Mexican or Colombian provenance.

But on the other side of the Atlantic, adulterated heroin is killing drug users.

Hit hard by a double whammy of drought and economic slowdown, California's Central Valley has become a hotbed of methamphetamine and other injection drug use. Now, the dusty town of Modesto, in Stanislaus County, has become a focal point in the statewide and nationwide battle over how to help injection drug users. Last week, two volunteers at an unsanctioned needle exchange were in court in Modesto hoping to reach a plea bargain after they were arrested in April for handing out syringes. Now known as the Mono Park 2, they're looking at serious jail time for trying to save lives.

mobile needle exchange/clinic site in nearby Fresno

The case has its genesis in longstanding efforts to win official approval for a needle exchange in Modesto. California law allows for needle exchanges, but only as a local option. The county board of supervisors must declare a health emergency in order for needle exchanges to operate legally.

In a 2008 report, Containing the Emerging Threat of Hepatitis through a Syringe Exchange Program (begins on page 22), the Stanislaus County Civil Grand Jury recommended the county authorize syringe exchanges and implement them either directly or through a community based contractor. The effort also had the support of county public health officials, including Public Health Department, the Advisory Board for Substance Abuse Programs, the Local AIDS Advisory Implementation Group, and the Hepatitis C Task Force, who cited a high incidence of Hepatitis C. They cited research indicating that needle exchanges reduced the spread of blood-borne diseases, brought injection drug users into contact with public health workers, and did not result in increases in drug use.

But despite the input from the public health community and the grand jury report, the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors a year ago voted unanimously against allowing needle exchanges. In so doing, they heeded their own prejudices and those of law enforcement over science-based policies and the advice of the public health community.

County Sheriff Adam Christianson and DA Fladager both spoke out against needle exchanges, saying they would enable drug users to continue their addiction. Fladager said needle exchanges sent the wrong message to young people and encouraged them to think the county would take care of them if they become addicted.

"All of the challenges we are faced with in Stanislaus County, the gangs, methamphetamine, crimes, all have elements of drug addiction," Christianson said. "A syringe exchange program enables people to continue with their drug addiction."

used syringes collected by exchange -- they might otherwise have been discarded in public places

Supervisor Jim DeMartini thanked the grand jury for the report, but then dismissively added, "Like many well-intentioned programs that don't work out, this will never work out and deliver the benefits promised."

Too bad the sheriff, the DA, and the county board don't agree with the nation's drug czar. "Needle exchange programs have been proven to reduce the transmission of blood-borne diseases," Gil Kerlikowske told Congress during confirmation hearings earlier this year. "A number of studies conducted in the US have shown needle exchange programs do not increase drug use. I understand that research has shown these programs, when implemented in the context of a comprehensive program that offers other services such as referral to counseling, healthcare, drug treatment, HIV/AIDS prevention, counseling and testing, are effective at connecting addicted users to drug treatment."

Given the knowledge base about the effectiveness of exchanges and the evident human need for them in Modesto, needle exchange advocates were not content to simply roll over and die. Instead, they created an unauthorized needle exchange in the city's Mono Park, also known as needle park by residents because of the used needles littering the ground there. The program was publicized and went along on a low-level basis without a hitch until April, when, after an elaborate undercover sting, police swooped down and arrested the exchange volunteers.

Kristi Tribuzio just happened to be volunteering with the needle exchange the day the bust went down. Now, she's one of the defendants. "There was a direct need for this, and when I found out there was an existing exchange -- I saw a flyer on a telephone pole -- I asked how is this happening?" she said. "I got involved; I was just going out there for the people. An undercover cop came up and did an exchange, and then, a little later eight to 10 undercover officers drove up with a drug dog and arrested us. It was pretty harsh and crazy," she recalled.

"Looking back, Brian and I think it was maybe naive of us to just go out there and do something that was helping people in line with other syringe exchange programs," said Tribuzio. "We didn't understand what the consequences could be."

Now, she and Robinson face up to a year in jail for violating the paraphernalia law. For Tribuzio, there were other consequences, including the loss of her contract position with the Stanislaus County drug and alcohol education and prevention program. "I was laid off two days after I was arrested. Because I was a contract worker, they didn't need a reason to fire me, and no official reason was given. Ironically, my employer supports needle exchange," she said. "Maybe that's why they laid me off instead of firing me for cause. Now, at least, I can get unemployment."

Tribuzio had previously worked as a substitute teacher, but she can't do that now, either. "I'm getting an MA in education, and I have a teaching credential, but my credential is now suspended," she said. "Imagine, a teacher in San Francisco could be doing just what I did, and there would be no problem."

That's because needle exchanges have been authorized by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, just as they have in most large California cities. But in more conservative locales, like the Central Valley, the fight is more difficult, and therein lies the problem -- and the solution -- said one prominent harm reductionist.

"What we need is to get legislation authorizing syringe exchanges on a statewide level rather than our current system, which requires that they be authorized by local authorities," said Hilary McQuie, Oakland-based Western director of the Harm Reduction Coalition. "Requiring local authorization means we have to deal with 54 jurisdictions instead of just one, and the politics makes it really difficult in conservative places like Fresno or Modesto. It will be really difficult to get syringe exchange approved in Modesto without a statewide mandate," she said.

Short of that, needle exchange advocates need to carefully lay the groundwork beforehand, she said. In that respect, the Modesto needle exchange perhaps suffered from political naivete. "The effort with the grand jury in Modesto was done in good faith, but the grand jury finding required a response from the Board of Supervisors within three months," she noted. "They hadn't really lined up their support with the Board, and the Board ended up voting against it. That was problematic."

While personally difficult for Tribuzio and Robinson, the battle over needle exchanges in Modesto has moved the issue forward locally and stirred support from around the country and the world. A Mono Park 2 Defense Committee has formed to back them. At last week's hearing, more than a dozen supporters were present in court, and the pair had letters of support from some 35 public health and harm reduction organizations here and abroad.

"We've gotten a ton of support from the harm reduction community," said Tribuzio. "This whole thing has been stressful and overwhelming for us, but they've given us a wealth of training, knowledge, and support, more than we ever expected. We've gotten support from people in other exchanges, and letters of support from around the world. We've also been building alliances with people in the community. Things in the Central Valley are crazy, and we can't turn our heads away in the face of disease. Now, at least, people are paying attention."

While Robinson and Tribuzio wait for their legal problems to be resolved, they continue to work with at-risk communities. "After the bust, we started Off The Streets, and that does everything except for needle exchange," said Tribuzio. "We're doing needs assessments, trying to get our fingers on the pulse of the community, trying to help where we can."

For McQuie, the trials and tribulations of the Mono Park 2 are, sadly, par for the course. "This is how most of the programs got started, doing them illegally, so they're in good company," she said.

Years of effort by harm reductionists, public health authorities, HIV/AIDS researchers and activists, and drug law reformers to undo the more than 20-year-old ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs (NEPs) may come to fruition this year, but there are significant obstacles to overcome. Still, advocates of the reform are cautiously optimistic.

Since 1988, the US government has prevented local and state public health authorities from using federal funds for NEPs, which studies have shown to be effective in reducing HIV infection rates among injection drug users (IDUs) and their sexual partners, promoting public health and safety by taking syringes off the streets, and protecting law enforcement personnel from injuries. NEPS have been endorsed by the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Thomas Frieden, and former Surgeons General Everett Koop and David Satcher, among many others.

Chicago map demonstrating the impact of the 1000-foot rule -- click for larger copies and more maps of Chicago and San Francisco (courtesy Dr.Russell Barbour, Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS, Yale School of Medicine)

Injection drug use accounts for up to 16% of the 56,000 new HIV infections in the US every year -- or nearly 9,000 people. IDUs represent 20% of the more than 1 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the US and the majority of the 3.2 million Americans living with hepatitis C infection.

Still, those numbers could have been higher. In a 2008 study, the CDC concluded that the incidence of HIV among injection drug users had decreased by 80% in the past 20 years, in part due to needle exchange programs. There are today an estimated 185 NEPs operating in 36 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. But they rely on local or private funds, and many of them are failing to meet demand because of lack of funding. While the CDC says that its public health policy goal is 100% needle exchange, current estimates are that only 3.2% of needles used by drug users in urban areas are exchanged for clean ones.

The federal funding ban was first removed in a July 10 vote of the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies. A week later, the full Appropriations Committee approved the bill after voting down an amendment proposed by US Rep. Chet Edwards (D-TX) that would have reinstated the funding ban.

But the Appropriations Committee did approve an amendment dictating that federally funded NEPs could not operate "within 1,000 feet of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event sponsored by any such entity."

A floor amendment by Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN) to reinstate the funding ban also was defeated, clearing the way for repeal of the ban to pass the House. But the thousand-foot language remains in the appropriations bill approved by the House, and it's extremely objectionable to reform advocates. The Senate committee working on the issue did not include ending the funding ban, but reform advocates are pinning their hopes on both ending the ban and killing the thousand-foot restriction on the end-game House-Senate appropriations conference committee.

"The Senate has taken up their version of the bill in committee, but hasn't had a full vote," explained Daniel Raymond, policy director for the Harm Reduction Coalition. "At the committee level, the Senate chose not to take any action on the ban. At this point, there is a conflict between the House and the Senate." HRC is lobbying the Senate to repeal the ban, without the restrictions.

"We commend the full House for recognizing that NEPs are essential, effective tools that work in our fight against HIV and hepatitis transmission," said Kevin Robert Frost, chief executive of the Foundation for AIDS Research. "And while the compromise in the bill isn't perfect, we are hopeful that a final bill will reach President Obama's desk without limitations."

"We urge Congress to recognize both the benefit and cost-savings of syringe exchange programs, and the research that NEPs do not have detrimental impact on communities," said Marjorie Hill of Gay Men's Health Crisis, which has just released yet another study demonstrating NEPs' effectiveness in decreasing the transmission of blood-borne diseases. "For too long, we have allowed ideology to drive public health policy. It is time to remove the federal funds ban for syringe exchange and remove the harmful 1,000 feet restriction," added Hill.

"The House bill, as it stands, still puts ideology before science by limiting how federal funds can be used for NEPs," Frost said. "But we have time to fix the legislation, and I'm hopeful that the full US Congress will realize the importance of allowing local elected and public health officials to make their own decisions about how to address their HIV and hepatitis epidemics."

"I believe that the president, the Senate, and the House all want to do the right thing and they're trying to figure out how to do it," said Bill McColl of AIDS Action. "If they follow their own rhetoric about science- and evidence-based HIV/AIDS prevention policy, then they will remove the thousand-foot restriction," he said.

"The thousand-foot provision is a backdoor means of reinstating the funding ban," McColl continued. "There is almost no urban environment in which it would allow needle exchanges to operate. There are no currently existing needle exchanges that would be able to get federal funding, so it just doesn't make sense to change the policy that way. Drug policy groups have gone and literally shown Congress maps of what would be excluded. They've got letters from mayors and police saying this is not a workable provision. Again, Congress and the president know what the science is."

In addition to eliminating federally-funded needle exchanges in vast swathes of the urban landscape, the thousand-foot rule would have other insidious effects, said McColl. "Having that rule would have undesirable side effects, in that it would separate needle exchange from other public health services. Our AIDS program does testing in areas with lots of drug use -- that's where we need to be testing, and that's where we want the population to have clean syringes. With federal funding available and with the thousand-foot rule, prevention services will be driven away from needle exchanges."

Alice Bell, prevention project coordinator for Prevention Point Pittsburgh, already lives with geographical restrictions. "We have a local regulation that specifies 1,500 feet from schools only, not all the other restrictions in the current language of the federal bill. We have to move our main needle exchange site because the building we're in is being sold, and we're having trouble finding a good place. Any federal restrictions would make it even tougher," she said.

Bell wants the federal funding ban ended, but worries that the thousand-foot rule would put a crimp in her efforts. "We still want it. We need the federal funding. Our program is expanding, but we can't really expand our exchange service because we don't have money for needles. The toughest thing is always getting money for needles. Ending the federal funding ban would make a huge difference to us."

Federal funding becomes even more significant when coupled with economic hard times and budget problems at the state and local level, Bell noted. "We're mostly funded through foundations and private donations, and we've begun getting some state and county money for overdose prevention and HIV prevention, but the needle exchange -- the core of what we do -- is the toughest to get funded."

"The Senate will most likely go along with the House in conference committee," said Drug Policy Alliance director of national affairs Bill Piper. "They will probably take a bunch of appropriations bills and put them in a massive omnibus spending bill. It is far from clear that there will be a ban in what comes out of the Congress."

But the thousand-foot rule has to go, he said. "A lot of groups have been lobbying really hard on the thousand-foot issue," Piper noted. "It would be an effective ban is many cities. Here in DC, for example, the only place you could do a needle exchange program would be down at the docks on the Potomac. The strategy is to convince the conference committee to either take that out or come up with something better."

Advocates are lobbying hard right now, said the Harm Reduction Coalition's Raymond. "Right now, we're doing a push to make sure the Senate is educated about the issue and ask the leadership to get on board with House's action to address the ban," he said. "The House version has the thousand-foot restriction, so we're also making the arguments about why that's not workable and needs to be redone. We've been circulating maps showing its impact to House members who are focused on the issue. This restriction goes far beyond any reasonable desire to balance public health with other interests. When that provision was thrown in at the last minute, its effects hadn't really been thought out," he argued.

"We keep up the work in reaching out to Congress on both House and Senate side," said Raymond, "and we're also asking the White House to show some leadership and urge the Senate to address the federal ban. We don't want this issue to get lost in the shuffle, we're calling on everyone in the community to make our voices heard and reaching out to our elected officials."

It may take awhile to get settled, said Piper. "The entire appropriations process is messed up, and a lot of will depend on if, when, and how the Senate deals with health care," he explained. "Supposedly, they will get the appropriations bills done by the end of October, but I think that's a fantasy. Last year, they didn't even do this year's appropriations bills until March."

Still, AIDS Action's McColl maintains a positive outlook. "I think the members who will be called on to vote on this understand the issues," he said. "I have a pretty good feeling about this. I'm hopeful this is the year."