Hey, there! Log in / Register
Citizen complant of the day: If the needles are over there, why is the collection box over here?
By adamg on Mon, 05/06/2019 - 9:33am
Needles nowhere near the collection box
The city recently installed a needle-collection box in front of the Orchard Gardens School in Roxbury - where parents have been complaining for months about needles turning up on school grounds. A concerned citizen filed a 311 complaint, about its location - because addicts aren't shooting up right in front of the school:
The bike/walking path between Albany & Harrison on Boston Water & Sewer side is littered with needles. Thanks for installing this kiosk in front of an elementary school instead of where it really should have been.
Neighborhoods:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Oh, if the box was closer to the tree
Then the addicts would have used it?
Is that the gist of the complaint?
I'm pretty sure heroin addicts lose their cognitive abilities immediately after shooting up and when they regain them they are not too concerned about discarded needles.
Indeed
Because there's never been an issue of needles on the playground at the Orchard Gardens School. Who would think there was even an issue across the street?
Can someone please explain
what is going on in the minds of people who think it's a good idea to install used syringe boxes for druggies shooting up in parks, playgrounds, etc.? Are these people naive? Delusional and high on fill-in-the-blank? Trolling? OCD control freaks? Alleged altruistic do-gooders with some secret psychological agenda?
It's a strategy called "harm reduction"
In a perfect world, there would be no syringes. Unfortunately, our world is less than perfect. Hence, there is a definitive need to have safe syringe disposal boxes in places where syringes are otherwise discarded improperly. It may not address the problem 100%, but even one syringe off the street is one less syringe that threatens our communities and our children.
Here is a link with more information.
A perfect world without syringes
would have to be a world without diabetes, too.
Diabetics
have to pay for their syringes.
I withdraw my former
I withdraw my former statement, and replace it with:
"In a perfect world, there would be no syringes discarded on the ground where they could cause harm or undue injury to unsuspecting (or perhaps suspecting, since we live in Boston after all) passersby."
Boston has normalized open
Boston has normalized open air drug use in a profoundly disturbing way. Nobody shots dope in their and stabs the fraternities of Macy's on 34th St in Manhattan but they do it in Downtown Boston. People are in traffic asking for money and nodding out on MBTA. Maybe time to rearview " "policy" on possession use and distribution. The quality of life in Boston is suffering and addiction is treatable.
Stabs the fraternities?
I don't understand what that means.
I went by there almost an
I went by there almost an hour ago and someone was walking up and down the sidewalk with a small sharps container, picking up needles.
Move that kiosk
I sweep for needles often bc I walk my dog and child to school. Found another 4 needles (reported to 311) on Melnea Cass by Boston Water and Sewer this morning and did a sweep of the school and area where the kiosk is and there were none. They need to move the kiosk to where people use. This is all performative action from the city, we all know this solves very little. Our kids & families should have more agency over their school zone than addicts.
How depressing.
We seem to be completely resigned to needle-collection boxes on the streets, and now just argue about their placement.
Where would you prefer to put them?
My choice would be pharmacies. They sell the needles, they should be required to collect them back.
Safe/supervised injection sites would be a great place to start.
Treatment on demand would also be helpful. And make the Sackler family pay for it all.
Honestly, I wouldn't want to encourage addicts with dirty needles wandering around my local CVS, but it's probably already happening.
You folks just don't get it.
You folks just don't get it. An addict doesn't discard his needle until it is so dull he can no longer inject with it. Then they just drop it where ever they are.
In my career as a health care professional I gave Narcan 3 or 4 times in institutional settings, never got a thank you.
In fact all clients were annoyed with me and said I ruined their high! They said they would have woke up eventually on their own.
Having safe injection sites is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Talk about enabling!
If someone wants help all they have to do is walk into an ER whether they have insurance or not and everything will be done to accommodate them.
I know because I have done the work, spent 2-3 hours on the phone to find them a detox only to have them decline and leave. That being said, I always tried my best to help them, in the end it was up to them.
That's not helpful to say its
That's not helpful to say its "rediculous." People give clear reasons why they think a safe injection site may help. Disagreeing with those ideas doesn't make it ridiculous. In the midst of a crisis is hardly time to be shutting down ideas.
Also I dont think anything you said has to do with why we would have those sites.
No On Injection Sites
Liberal Governor of California, Jerry Brown's Veto Message for "safe" injection sites
gov.ca.gov/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/AB-186-veto-9.30.pdf
cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mother-opposes-safe-injection-sites-1.3496502
Radio interview with a young woman battling addiction about “safe" injection sites. Starting at 3:14
She insisted that such sites would have exactly the opposite effect as intended. “ I don't think it's harm reduction anymore. It just goes into enabling and harm. When I was an addict,” she said, “I didn’t have anywhere to go. I’d be in stairwells, I’d be in bathrooms, I’d be in the malls. Having somewhere to go, where everybody is shooting up, it’s almost like a dream come true.”
Addict shares how to help addicts:
cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/mother-opposes-safe-injection-sites-1.349650
There is de facto treatment
There is de facto treatment on demand, but core group of users are camped out in them. Harm reduction means using in a program and getting a support plan when you get caught. The programs are full of active users it's just another place to trash like Your neighborhood as far as they are concerned.
Pharmacies make sense, as do
Pharmacies make sense, as do hospitals and clinics. I'd settle for being able to drop off sharps containers at a significant number of hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies. That makes life significantly easier for people using non-recreational injectable drugs (including insulin) as well as for junkies. And it makes trash collectors' job a bit safer: if disposing of sharps appropriately is difficult, more people will drop their full sharps containers into the household trash.
another delusional person
who thinks addicts give a single fuck about where they throw their dirty needles. newsflash: all they care about is getting the heroin in their veins, nothing else
It seems we are arguing over
It seems we are arguing over the color of dog sh*t on the sidewalk. How is this going to solve or fix anything?
What about the children
How is it that we are bending over ba kwards to make sure those suffering w addiction are served, rather than the children who must pass by this insanity day after day. Have we lost out collective minds? For the record MIT is hosting a forum on 5/17 to focus on "spatial issues related to this crisis. We will engage a conversation to question how urban planning and design can contribute to the making of a user friendly city". Check it out [email protected].
Link?
I'm interested in attending this event. Is there a link with more info? I'm having a hard time finding it on the MIT events page.
What about the children
sorry about the link. 4 :30 PM May 17 MIT 5-134.
Is there a page about the event
that we can link to? Thanks.
I emailed the address listed
I emailed the address listed in the above comment and got back this link to a Google form for confirming attendance. Should be an interesting lecture, to say the least!
Info from the link:
Friday, May 17, 4:30P - 6:30P
MIT, Room 5-134
RSVPs welcomed - but not required.
For the last year, University of Paris-Est Professor Elsa Vivant has conducted an ethnographic study of the human impact of the opioid crisis in Boston area. As many know, six people die in the state of Massachusetts daily due to complications with opioid addiction. This is only a fragment of the total impact of opioids and of other substances on our communities. Framed as a public health emergency, the opioid crisis also appears as a spatial issue. This questions the right to the city for a vulnerable population and the role of urban planning and design in responding to addiction.
This session will be a collaborative learning session where Elsa will share reflections from her study as a way for all of us to learn and explore how urban planning and design contribute in ending stigma, welcoming substance users and progressing a healthier city.
This is brought to you by MIT Create, MIT Radius, and MIT PKG Public Service Center.
Needles
How about a $10 deposit per needle. Kind of like a bottle return. Then the bums that litter would have incentive to pick them up.
Most addicts do not obtain
Most addicts do not obtain their syringes legally, therefore your comment does not make sense.
How about protection for the diabetic veterans that get their syringes stolen.
Seriously?
Should someone follow users around with a sharps containers, will that work? Individuals who use sharps in the home and don’t have a container have no problem discarding sharps in plastic bottles. Here, we have a huge needle box and people won’t walk 40 feet to use it.
Banned In Boston
We ban plastic bags but give out thousands of hep c needles for free. What is wrong with this picture.
Looks like needle exchanges
Looks like needle exchanges and treatment on demand has created a class of dependant addicts who spin dry, od, traffic sex, drop needles and are experiencing record HIV, hep c and syphilis. Boston has a couple thousand dually diagnosed substance users from all over MA. and the U.S.
here for MassHealth and
trying to get " Housing ". Boston's children and citizens are paying a huge price to fund DR's at Suboxone Clinics and "non profit" agencies directors vacation homes. Methamphetamine is on Boston streets now and we should no be enabling this population. If you tolerate open air drug use the dealers and Johns will come. Let the States Cities and together come from provide services, we are simply being held hostage at this point.
The collection box is for the parents to see and stop complaints
A feel good gesture because addicts don't GAF about anyone or anything but their fix. They won't use it no matter where located, so best that parents can see it and feel safer.