Meta Data Name: Syringe Services Laws
Date Added: Febrary 23, 2021
Author: Qinyun Lin
Date Last Modified: January 3, 2024
Last Modified By: Wataru Morioka
Policy
You can find the variables described in this document in the CSV files here.
CSV files are organized by year and spatial scale. For example, county-level variables from 2000 will be found in C_2000.csv.
Note: Every variable can be found in the Latest files.
Variables were obtained from Table 1 (August 1, 2019) in Fernández-Viña MH, Prood NE, Herpolsheimer A, Waimberg J, Burris S. State Laws Governing Syringe Services Programs and Participant Syringe Possession, 2014-2019. Public Health Reports. 2020;135:128S-137S. doi:10.1177/0033354920921817
See Comments/Notes section below for where to find more detailed variables regarding syringe related policies.
The following variables were included from the source data:
- Law explicitly authorzies SSPs;
- No state drug paraphernalia law;
- State law does not prohibit free distribution of syringes;
- Paraphernalia definition explicitly exludes objects used for injecting drugs;
- Paraphernalia definition does not refer to objects used for injecting drugs;
- No state law removing barriers or uncertainty as to SSP legality;
- Variable -- title of variable
- Variable ID -- exact name of variable in datasets
- Description -- Short description of variable
- Years Available -- years for which data exists for this variable
- Spatial Scale -- the variable exists for these levels of spatial scale
Variable | Variable ID in .csv | Description | Years Available | Spatial Scale |
---|---|---|---|---|
Law explicitly authorzies SSPs | ExpSsp | Dummy variable indicating whether the state has law that explicitly authorizes Syringe Service Programs (0=no, 1=yes) | Latest | State |
No state drug paraphernalia law | NoPrphLw | Dummy variable indicating whether the state has no state drug paraphernalia law (0=no, 1=yes) | Latest | State |
State law does not prohibit free distribution of syringes | NtPrFrDsSy | Dummy variable indicating whether the state law does not prohibit free distribution of syringes (0=no, 1=yes) | Latest | State |
Paraphernalia definition explicitly exludes objects used for injecting drugs | PrExcInj | Dummy variable indicating whether the paraphernalia definition in the state law explicitly exludes objects used for injecting drugs (0=no, 1=yes) | Latest | State |
Paraphernalia definition does not refer to objects used for injecting drugs | PrNtRefInj | Dummy variable indicating whether the paraphernalia definition in the state law does not refer to objects used for injecting drugs (0=no, 1=yes) | Latest | State |
No state law removing barriers or uncertainty as to SSP legality | NoLwRmUnc | Dummy variable indicating whether the state has no law removing barriers or uncertainty as to SSP legality (0=no, 1=yes) | Latest | State |
N/A
The variables included here are very high-level and for August 1, 2019. For more detailed and longitudinal data, we recommend the following datasets from LawAtlas: