Syringe Possession Laws

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When it is illegal to possess syringes under state law, injection drug users (IDUs) are more likely to share or reuse syringes, which can lead to the spread of infectious diseases like HIV/AIDs and other blood-borne diseases. Over time, some states have decriminalized possession of syringes by removing the mention of syringes, explicitly excluding syringes from their criminal drug paraphernalia laws, or allowing very small amounts of residue on syringes possessed by IDUs. Syringe possession policies affect how easy or difficult it can be for IDUs to access sterile syringes. This is a longitudinal dataset, capturing changes in syringe possession laws from July 1, 2012 to July 1, 2017. 

A more comprehensive look at Syringe Services Program Laws, updated as of August 1, 2021 is available here. 

Dataset Details Supporting Documents
Created by Scott Burris, JD

Data
Date range: July 1, 2012 – July 1, 2017 Codebook
Jurisdictions: 50 U.S. States and the District of Columbia Protocol