In January, Congress lifted a decades-long ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs and clinics. Since then, the number of programs has skyrocketed, driven in large part by the opioid epidemic. Programs have popped up in states that might never have considered them -- or might even have actively opposed them -- only 10 years ago. “Kentucky has gone from zero to 11 programs,” says Daniel Raymond, policy director at the Harm Reduction Coalition. “Florida authorized a program in Miami -- and we thought they would never have one.”

The goal of needle exchanges, in which drug users hand in their used syringes for new sterile ones, is to reduce the number of infections from diseases like HIV and hepatitis -- illnesses that are transmitted through the sharing of contaminated needles.

Read the entire story.