Alva Review-Courier -

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri House on Tuesday advanced a bill to make it legal for organizations to provide free needles to drug users, a change backers said could prevent the spread of disease and help combat the opioid epidemic.

Some groups now pass out clean syringes to intravenous drug users with the goal of preventing the spread of hepatitis C and HIV through dirty needles, Republican Rep. Holly Rehder, the bill's sponsor, said. But state law currently bans possessing drug paraphernalia, which puts the needle exchanges in murky legal waters.

Rehder's bill, which won initial app...