REPEALING DENVER’S 1000 FOOT ORDINANCE

Denver should act quickly to update its syringe service program ordinance to reflect current evidence and reduce barriers to the many beneficial services that these programs provide. The current ordinance that regulates “qualified needle exchange and treatment referral programs” dates back to 1997. Although minor edits have been made since then, it is now woefully out of date and imposes requirements that exist in almost no other jurisdictions. In particular, the ordinance, Sec. 24-157, limits the city from authorizing more than three SSPs, and forbids the programs that are approved from operating within 1,000 feet of any “elementary and/or secondary school meeting all the requirements of the compulsory education laws of the state or a licensed day care center,” with the exception of mobile outreach workers. Both of these restrictions make it impossible for these programs to adequately serve the needs of city residents.

Three syringe exchanges currently operate in the city, where they are subject to the rules and regulations of the Denver Department of Public Health and Environment. Two have been operating fixed sites since February 2012. In addition to providing new syringes and removing used ones from circulation, they perform many other life-saving activities, including providing the overdose reversal medication naloxone and connecting people to evidence-based treatment. They have proven to be good neighbors and positive members of their communities for more than a decade.However, three facilities is not nearly enough to serve the greater than 700,000 people who live in Denver’s more than 150 square miles. Additionally, the limitation on operating within 1,000 feet from schools and childcare centers has been an ongoing challenge for the programs that do exist. Because there are so many schools and daycare facilities in the city, it is nearly impossible for SSPs to find space in areas where they are easily accessible to those that need them most (please see attached map). This challenge has been exacerbated recently due to an increasingly tight real estate market, particularly since most SSPs do not own the buildings in which they operate.

There is no evidence to support these restrictions. SSPs have been shown time and time again to reduce bloodborne disease transmission, to connect people who use drugs to treatment and other services, and to improve public safety. This is likely why Denver is nearly alone in restricting SSP operation like the current ordinance. To our knowledge the only other jurisdictions with a similar distance-based restriction are Georgia and Tennessee. The last other municipality with such a restriction, the District of Columbia, repealed it in 2019 and Pittsburgh repealed theirs in 2014. We do not know of any other jurisdictions that artificially limit the number of SSPs that can operate.

Why we need to eliminate the 1,000 foot restriction:

1. These restrictions have no public health or public safety benefit.

2. The ordinance is out of conformity of the statewide law. In 2010, Syringe exchange legislation passed allowing public health counties to opt-in. Denver is the only county in the state with an ordinance. In 2019, legislation passed that Hospitals are allowed to provide syringe exchange without board of health approval. In 2020, legislation passed that board of health approval isn’t needed anymore for a syringe access program except in Denver they would need a variance from the board of health because the citywide cap is at 3 programs, per this current ordinance.

3. These restrictions likely cause harm, including increasing the number of people in the city who contract bloodborne diseases like HIV and hepatitis C and the number of people who experience fatal opioid overdose by restricting access to syringes, drug checking equipment, naloxone, and referrals to evidence-based treatment.

4. The restrictions are directly at odds with the Administration’s goals of increasing access to SSPs, as evidenced by the generous funding provided to these programs.