The needle exchange program in Santa Ana was recently gutted by the city (LA Times 2018). “Public welfare” was undermined according to city officials who made the ruling in February. The purpose of needle exchange programs is to prevent HIV transmission. State hindrance of these programs and HIV prevention research has helped produce HIV vulnerability especially in racialized spaces (Singer). Medical anthropologists have been key to unveiling the links between the war on drugs and the crises of HIV. In some states, HIV research is very limited due to the use of drug paraphernalia-which are considered illegal in some states. The policing of the issue instead of prevention has made programs such as the needle exchange program vulnerable. "State-sanctioned" violence that the geographer Ruth Gilmore use to show how the state is complicit in the problem- yet absolved from any accountability.
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