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A Refresher on North Carolina’s Needle Exchange Law and Other Harm Reduction Immunities

In response to the opioid crisis, North Carolina passed several protections designed to alleviate some of the legal liability surrounding drug use in the interest of harm reduction and public health. One of those protections authorized needle exchange programs (alternatively known as safe syringes programs). G.S. 90-113.27. A recent study examined how the needle exchange program is working in seven North Carolina counties and found that the law was not consistently applied. Brandon Morrison et al., “They Don’t Go by the Law Around Here”: Law Enforcement Interactions After the Legalization of Syringe Services Programs in North Carolina, vol. 19, Harm Reduction Journal, 106 (Sept. 27, 2022). Considering the study’s findings, I thought a refresher on the immunity provisions for syringe exchanges and similar protections would be timely. Read on for the details.

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Drug Testing of Probationers as a Warrantless Search

The principal probation reform bill (S.L. 2009-372 [S 920], summarized here) went into effect on December 1. Since then, I’ve received a number of questions about it, many of them from probation officers. One of their main concerns relates to the way some of the amendments to the law are reflected in the new AOC … Read more