MinnPost35%
Needle exchange programs at risk of closure as state funding dries up 17%
By Andy Steiner19%
8/4/2026, 3:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Optimism Bias, Ambiguity (Equivocation), and Status Quo Bias, with Appeal to Authority as the most egregious example at 13.1% saturation with 146 hits. Analysis detected 1,071 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,116 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 26.3% and a BS Rank of 17% (23,385 of 28,109 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 83.20% of the article peer group.
It’s never been easy to secure funding for Harm Reduction Sisters , a Duluth-based nonprofit that supports people struggling with addiction.
But in June, it became even harder.
That’s when founder Sue Purchase learned that the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) would no longer fund the organization’s syringe service program offering needle exchange, safe injection supplies and support services for drug users.
“The MDH has always been supportive of my work ,” Purchase said, adding that she’d lose $150,000 a year.
“I was honestly surprised to hear that they’d made this decision.”
Syringe service programs – SSPs in the vernacular of treatment providers – are designed to meet drug users where they’re at, without an immediate focus on getting them to quit.
Instead, the aim is to ensure that the supplies for IV drug use do not infect users with chronic and sometimes deadly viruses like HIV and Hepatitis C.
Related: Harm reduction saves lives.
That might not be good enough.
SSPs also provide support and resources to ensure people have a path to treatment when they’re willing to take it.
Since gaining traction in the 1980s, SSPs have been an integral part of “harm reduction” – an approach to treatment that focuses on reducing the harm caused by drug use so that users can get on a path toward sustainable health.
The HIV Prevention grant that had been funding Harm Reduction Sisters’ SSP, along with seven others in the state, was scheduled to end June 30, 2026.
But Purchase figured that, as in the past, the department would continue to support the work.
MDH has been funding Harm Reduction Sisters’ SSP since 2021, Purchase said, and has consistently funded SSPs around the state since 1998.
Sue Purchase, executive director of Harm Reduction Sisters, on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Duluth, Minn.
Credit: Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost/CatchLight Local/Report for America
Earlier this year, MDH staff called a meeting with all grantees supported by the program.
“They skirted around issues but it was clear they knew there was a crisis going on,” Purchase said.
“Then they said federal funding wasn’t available but they would be using state dollars to fund our work.”
Jack Martin, executive director and co-founder of Minneapolis-based Southside Harm Reduction Services , another MDH grantee, said he also had been given the heads up that changes were afoot.
“We heard from MDH that the funding was shaky,” Martin said, but he hadn’t been told that his program would lose all SSP funding.
Mary McCarthy, executive director of Rural AIDS Action Network , said that as early as this past winter, MDH let program directors know of coming funding shifts.
Still, she expected it to work out – that perhaps the changes were designed to align with the federal fiscal year.
“I figured they were trying to get ahead of the game,” she said.
Then on June 9, an email from Jose Ramirez, the state’s HIV prevention program manager, notified grantees that the program was ending.
“At this time, current and future funding opportunities remain uncertain,” he wrote, explaining that the department is waiting on decisions from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As of today, we do not have the funds necessary to provide extended support for this program.”
In the letter, Ramirez also said that MDH is “actively exploring opportunities and are hopeful that additional resources may become available in the future.”
But Andrea Ahneman, an MDH spokesperson, put it plainly.
“Unfortunately it seems like the funding is not available to continue,” she said.
A significant impact
Many of the eight programs that were funded under the grant — the Aliveness Project , Red Door Clinic , Clinic 555 , Harm Reduction Sisters, NorthPoint Health & Wellness , Native American Community Clinic , Rural AIDS Action Network, and Southside Harm Reduction Services — are small nonprofits that operate under tight budgets.
Losing up to $150,000 in yearly revenue is significant enough that it could cause some to scale back or close completely.
McCarthy said that unless Rural AIDS Action Network is able to secure replacement funding soon, they will have to close their Duluth SSP.
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“I’m praying for magic to happen, to be perfectly honest with you,” she said.
“It really breaks my heart that instead of celebrating our 13 th anniversary, we’re going to have a closure.”
Southside Harm Reduction Services is “making it work right now,” Martin said, while looking for other sources of funding.
“The future of funding for programs like ours is really uncertain.”
Do cuts signal a shift?
Purchase, for her part, believes the end of MDH financial support for SSPs is a result of federal funding cuts and fraud investigations that have centered on Minnesota.
“I definitely think it is a reaction to the federal government,” Purchase said.
“My sense is the state doesn’t want or need any more attention from the federal government, so they’re pulling inward.”
Missy Jellison, peer navigator and mobile delivery coordinator at Harm Reduction Sisters, restocks supplies, including safe injection kits, on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, in Duluth, Minn.
Credit: Ellen Schmidt/MinnPost/CatchLight Local/Report for America
Brad Ray, senior researcher at Research Triangle Institute and a member of Harm Reduction Sisters’ board of directors, said he thinks the cuts are connected to recent Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) directives that prohibit federal grant money from being used to fund harm-reduction supplies, like needles or sterile water, that leaders within the administration believe facilitate or promote illegal drug use.
“The cultural mood is shifting,” Ray said.
“Support for harm reduction is drying up.
People are distancing themselves from it.”
Ahneman, the MDH spokesperson, said that the end of this grant cycle does not represent the end of all support for syringe service programs.
“There are other grants out there that are funding various syringe service-type activities,” she said.
“There is not one grant that does all of it.”
Related: Threatened Medicaid funding for addiction treatment throws moms, kids and a town into limbo
Ryan Kelly, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School with a specialty in addiction medicine, commended Minnesota’s long history of supporting SSPs and other harm reduction work.
MDH staff understand the larger public health benefits, he said.
SSPs “keep people alive and save a ton of money,” he said.
They don’t just provide a place where someone has a bunch of syringes and they’ll collect them.
They build relationships and link people to care.”
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