MIAMI _ A green van was parked on the edge of downtown Miami, on a corner shadowed by overpasses. The vehicle serves as a mobile health clinic and syringe exchange, where people who inject drugs like heroin and fentanyl could swap dirty needles for fresh ones.
One of the clinic's regular visitors, a man with heavy black arrows tattooed on his arms, waited on the sidewalk to get clean needles.
"I'm Arrow," he said, introducing himself. "Pleasure."
This mobile unit in Miami-Dade County is part of the IDEA Exchange, the only legal needle exchange program operating in the state. But Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed a new law last week that aims to change that.
Needle exchanges have been legal in many other states for decades, but Southern, Republican-led states like Florida have only recently started to adopt this public health intervention.
The timing of the statewide legalization of needle exchanges comes as Florida grapples with a huge heroin and fentanyl problem. When people share dirty needles to inject drugs, it puts them at high risk for spreading bloodborne infections like HIV and hepatitis C. For years, Florida has had America's highest rates of HIV.
Even so, Arrow said, he and every user he knew always put the drugs first. Clean needles were an afterthought.
"Every once in a while, I did use someone else's and that was a thrill ride _ wondering whether or not I was going to catch anything. But I'm blessed; I'm 57 and I don't have anything," Arrow told a reporter at the mobile clinic over a year ago.
Kaiser Health News agreed not to use his full name because of his illegal drug use.
"Now I can shoot with a clean needle every time," he said.
