Multnomah County chair Jessica Vega Pederson says she has immediately paused a new initiative to distribute smoking kits, including pipes and tinfoil, to people using drugs.
The advocacy group People for Portland says its members had inundated the county with emails complaining that the policy was enabling fentanyl use.
Peterson says the county health department pursued the public health initiative without “proper implementation protocols.” The health department says it is doing additional legal research before proceeding.
Peterson says county officials hoped the kits would also connect people to naloxone, the overdose reversal medication.
The county is reaching fewer people with its needle exchange as the drugs that are most common now, fentanyl and methamphetamine, are frequently smoked and not injected.
According to University of Washington researchers, while needle exchanges are a relatively common public health measure nationwide only a handful of states have started distributing safe smoking supplies.
In Multnomah County, more than 200 people died from synthetic opioid overdoses in 2022, a five-fold increase since 2018, according to a presentation by the county health department in late June.