Chronic drug use in the community is down after nearly 10 years of a program in which staff provide clean needles to intravenous drug users, according to the Allen County Department of Health.

Mindy Waldron, department administrator, told the Allen County commissioners she believes the syringe services program is working because fewer people are exchanging needles.

“When we started this ten years ago, we were seeing 30 to 50 people on a Tuesday with four or five of them new,” Waldron said at the Aug. 22 meeting. “Now, we’re seeing less than 20 people on a Tuesday, and one or two of them are new.”

Indiana syringe services programs first began in 2014 in response to the HIV outbreak in Scott County in southeastern Indiana. That outbreak was traced to use of injection drugs. Allen County’s

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