Around New England

No ‘Clean Needles’ for Heroin Addicts Across from Church; From A Van, Instead

June 12, 2019

The AIDS Support Group has abandoned plans to provide clean needles to heroin users at a building next to a residential neighborhood across the street from a Catholic church in the Cape Cod town of Falmouth.

But the organization plans to offer needle exchanges from a van.

The original plan to open the needle exchange program across from St. Anthony’s Church in East Falmouth “prompted tremendous public outcry,” according to The Cape Cod Times.

Signs saying “Save St. Anthony’s” appeared near the site this past winter.

Falmouth has an unusually high number of sober houses – 17 certified sober homes and many others that aren’t certified, according to The Cape Cod Times. The town hosts a treatment center called Gosnold of Cape Cod, which attracts many off-Cape drug addicts to the town.

Sober houses are not regulated by the state Department of Public Health.