I wouldn’t be running for City Council this year if it wasn’t for the HIV crisis that poses Charleston, WV, particularly the under-served homeless and victims of the opioid and crack epidemic. I believe in compassionate responses to those in need like those with addictions. I trust our health professionals and studies from around the nation and world and the practices that are shown to reduce harm in the community as well as reduce costs. That is why I believe the City of Charleston revokes last year’s resolution to ban best practices of harm reduction as recommended by the CDC.
Together, the nation is trying to make difficult decisions about how to treat drug users, homeless, and people in transition. Local health care professionals and social workers make it clear to us that Charleston City Council as a whole has been making harmful decisions to both public health and human rights; endangering drug users by passing uniquely draconian policy, ignoring CDC best practices that have been followed in cities around the nation for years. HIV spread has been widely curbed by these practices, but Charleston suffers from an extremely rare spike to the US. Most of Charleston City Council chooses every day to allow human beings— fathers, mothers, children—to carry preventable disease like HIV and endocarditis instead of showing them compassion, reducing harm, and supporting their drug treatment.
Charleston needs to lift the restrictions on CDC’s recommended best practices or we continue to be in danger of a humanitarian crisis. Organizations like Health Right are doing the best they can with the limitations they have been given, but the numbers show us that it isn’t enough.