Charleston City Council voted unanimously to decriminalize possession of hypodermic syringes and needles, making way for a needle exchange program.
About 45 minutes before the Council meeting began, the Ordinance and Rules committee made a hasty effort to review and approve a committee substitute for its original bill, which drew concern from city officials and the public.
The proposed ordinance initially regulated the sale of drug paraphernalia and outlined extensively what items might be considered such, how to identify them and required stores keep records of their purchase.
The bill that passed Monday regulates the sale of hypodermic syringes and needles specifically, requiring distributors to have the appropriate state licenses in order to do so.
It also allows needles and syringes that are part of a needle exchange program to be distributed, so long as those programs are "sponsored or approved" by the city's police chief.
While municipal Judge Anne Charnock said at last week's Ordinance and Rules meeting that needle possession offenses can be "wakeup calls" for some, police disagreed with her on Monday.
Councilman Jack Harrison, committee chair, read statistics that stated 161 of the 3,203 criminal misdemeanor citations filed in municipal court were for possession of a needle.
"It'd be my belief as a police officer, I don't believe that we have any recreational needle users. Without taking those stats and breaking down every one of them, I'm not sure there's going to be too many wakeup calls, because what we're dealing with are people that are already gone in the sense that they're addicted to drugs or we believe they're addicted to drugs," said Chief of Police Brent Webster.
Lt. A.C. Napier, who is advocating for the needle exchange program, agreed.
"The reason being, by the time you get to a needle you've already went through other drugs," Napier said.
Also on Monday, Council:
n Passed an ordinance switching its cable television franchise from Cequel Corporation to Altice, which recently purchased Suddenlink.
n Approved $646,500 from the Governor's Highway Safety program that would be a partial reimbursement for the Metro Valley Highway Safety program's project coordinator's salary.
n Approved $16,300 to buy and install netting at the city's softball field in Kanawha City that's used by the University of Charleston.
The netting would help prevent foul balls hitting parked cars in the Charleston Area Medical Center's Cancer Center parking lot. CAMC and UC also are contributing to the $48,000 project.
n Voted for a change order to the Civic Center project to allow for the design and relocation of a sanitary sewer main along the Elk River. The change increases the city's contract price with BBL Carlton from $82,219,485 to an amount no more than $85,708,995.
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