'Not the norm': Pharmacy group reacts to claim some drug users denied clean needles

The province's pharmacists' association says it supports giving drug addicts access to clean needles.

• How cocaine and dirty needles are turning 20-somethings into heart patients

But a local advocate says some IV drug users have been denied clean needles at pharmacies something that could result in addicts using bacteria-laden needles and other paraphernalia.

"The stigma is so bad that people who go to drugstores to buy syringes are now being told by the drugstores, 'No we are not selling them to you,'" said Tree Walsh, with the Safe Works Access Program (SWAP) in St. John's.

"That's simply a moral judgement put on people who need access to clean using equipment to avoid things like infections that lead up to heart infections," she said.

"These pharmacistsfeel they have the right to judge people and not sell them needles. That's a big part of the problem."

Demand for clean needles up

But Glenda Power, executive director of the Pharmacists'Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, saidthat's not the stance the association has taken.

"There may be some pharmacists out there that are saying, I'm choosing not to sell you needles because perhaps I don't want to facilitate the drug use or the addiction or so on but that's certainly not the norm," Power told CBC News.

"What I'm hearing from our members is that the sale of clean needles is something they participate in."

That's certainly not the norm.- Glenda Power, PANL

Power also said pharmacists have noticed an increase in demand for clean needles at drugstores.

Cardiologist Sean Connors told CBC News this week that doctors at the Health Sciences Centre have seen a big increase in the number of young adults needing heart valve replacement surgery.

He said 20 open heart surgeries were performed in 2016on people who contracted a heart valve infection from using dirty needles.

Connors estimatedeach surgery costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and many patients returnwith the same problem months later.