Mendocino County, CA Public Health Rules: Syringe Disposal (2026)

020 finds that syringe sharing is the leading source of HIV transmission among women and children and the leading cause of Hepatitis C transmission, and notes that Business and Professions Code Sections 4145 and 4147 and Health and Safety Code Section 121285 let pharmacists in a local Disease Prevention Demonstration Project sell or furnish ten or fewer needles or syringes to a person eighteen or older without a prescription. Subsection (E) confirms that under Health and Safety Code Section 11364, a person in unincorporated Mendocino County possessing ten or fewer needles or syringes obtained lawfully is not subject to the state's drug-paraphernalia possession statute.

030 puts the Department of Public Health in charge of running the program: it must maintain a registry of participating pharmacies, obtain each pharmacy's certification that it will tell customers how to access drug treatment, how to get tested and treated for HIV and Hepatitis C, and how to safely dispose of sharps waste, and require every registered pharmacy to also register with the County of Mendocino Safe Needle Disposal Program. The Department supplies the written materials pharmacies hand out at the point of sale and can adopt further implementing policies, though its duties remain subject to the county's annual budget process.

The chapter took effect thirty days after its 2010 adoption under Ordinance No. 4263 and was last amended by Ordinance No. 4513 in October 2022.