By Jorge Casuso

April 16, 2024 -- About 50 demonstrators -- including the mayor and two City Councilmembers -- participated in a rally Tuesday morning at Reed Park to protest LA County's outdoor needle distribution program in Santa Monica.

Rally at Reed Park Tuesday to protest outdoor needle distribution program (Photo provided by Councilmember Lana Negrete)

There were no discarded needles to be found on the clean grounds of Reed Park, which has been the target of residents who complain the park has been taken over by homeless drug addicts.

But there were a number of reporters -- including one for a Chinese newspaper -- and news crews from local stations covering the event.

"I'm very happy to see this park is the cleanest it's been in a year or two this morning," said Mayor Phil Brock. "So I thank our City staff and Police Department for taking action."

Councilmember Lana Negrete, who was joined by Councilmember Christine Parra, offered a personal account of how the needle distribution program has mushroomed into a battle waged in both the Council chambers and County court.

Negrete said she first learned about the program from a mother whose diabetic daughter asked if the needle she had found in the park was hers, and from a father whose son stepped on a needle had to be taken to the hospital.

"I was floored," Negrete said. "I didn't understand where these needles came from."

After bringing it up at a Council meeting and finding that "nobody seemed to know," Negrete went to check it out.

"It was not a one-for-one exchange," she said. "Bags of needles, ten or twenty needles were being handed and left at the park. There was no one offering any services."

When she asked County officials about the program, Negrete said she was told, "We're trying to meet the needs of addicts where they are."

"If we caught our kids using in the bedroom would we say, 'Honey, let me bring you a clean needle?' We wouldn't do that.

"We need to get them the help they need," said Negrete, who said her half brother and uncle are meth addicts.

The rally, organized by the Santa Monica Coalition, comes one week after a deeply divided Council voted 4 to 3 to approve a resolution that "strongly demands" that LA County Health relocate the program indoors.

The Council action was taken after City officials tried for more than a year and a half to have the County relocate the program indoors ("Council Expected to Ask County's Help Removing Clean Needle Program from Parks," September 12, 2022).

A month later, the City sent a letter to health officials in September 2022, it received a response arguing against the move ("Little Progress Moving Needle Exchange Program Indoors," March 23, 2023).

Further efforts by individual Councilmembers also have failed.

City officials aren't the only ones pressuring the county. In February, the Santa Monica Coalition filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the outdoor program ("Santa Monica Group Files Lawsuit Over Needle Program," February 16, 2024).

"This should not be a political issue," Negrete said at the rally. "This should be a common sense issue. Let's stop making things political."