Skip to main content
It was the 1980s. Reagan’s war on drugs was filling the prisons. And, amid an AIDS epidemic, there were ugly proposals to send the sick there too. Outside In director Kathy Oliver was tired of people dying in her care. So in 1989, she took a radical step: give drug users clean needles so they wouldn’t spread the virus. It was one of the country’s first needle exchanges.
“In the 1980s, if you contracted AIDS, you died,” Oliver said in a retrospective published by Outside In. “AIDS, unlike many diseases, was preventable and we knew exactly how to prevent it. It seemed logical to provide our clients with condoms and syringes. Not everyone agreed.”
The project was widely met with revulsion. The first Bush administration said it wouldn’t work. State health officials refused to support it. But time proved Oliver right. Drug users who take part in needle exchanges are five times more likely to go into drug treatment and three times more likely to stop using drugs, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The needle exchange eventually gained county support and now distributes around a million syringes per year.
Oliver launched many other groundbreaking programs, including an acupuncture clinic and the Virginia Woof dog day care, which provides vital job training for young people getting off the streets.
Oliver retired in 2018. “She’s one of Portland’s heroes—an unsung hero,” says Gail Snow, former chair of Outside In’s board. Snow says Portland’s leaders could take some pointers from Oliver in their approach to addressing the city’s current crises. “That’s what Kathy was all about: She had a plan.”
Opens in new window