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Boston installing vending machines for addicts who don't want to die
By adamg on Mon, 12/23/2024 - 2:07pm
The city announced today it's installed four vending machines that dispense Narcan, clean syringes and fentanyl test kits - with room for possible later additions that could include pregnancy test kits and socks - and is working to install another eight machines that dispense Narcan across the city.
The goal is to reduce the harm of drug use until people with addiction can get into treatment, Boston Public Health Commissioner Bisola Ojikutu said in a statement.
Harm reduction is about keeping people safe and alive. Unfortunately, many people living with substance use disorder don’t use harm reduction tools, like naloxone and clean syringes, due to stigma, lack of access or unawareness
Four initial machines have been installed outside the Boston Medical Center's Finland Building, the Southampton Street shelter, the EnVision Hotel in Jamaica Plain and the North End Waterfront Community Health Center’s Charlestown location. The city is looking to install an additional eight naloxone kiosks at indoor locations.
The four vending machines were part of a purchase by the state Department of Public Health, with ten planned for installation elsewhere in the state.
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Comments
Four ideal indoor locations
North Station
South Station
Downtown Crossing Station
Andrew Station
I like this idea! Assuming
I like this idea! Assuming that the vending machines dispense these items free of charge, I am cautiously optimistic about their potential to improve access to harm reduction tools (and socks).
It is
Free! All the vending machines are free.
Is there a price for the
Is there a price for the Narcan?
I mean, I'm picturing somebody lying on the ground overdosing while another person tries to scrounge up enough money to purchase the Narcan.
Hmmmmm....That's a good question.
Hmmmm....that's a good question. The Narcan should be free for every heroin addict who desires help for getting over their addiction, enrolling in an addiction rehab program, and leading a normal life.
And for those who aren’t
And for those who aren’t ready to stop using? Should they not be able to access Narcan for free?
Or you could just save
Or you could just save someone's life and offer them help after. They can't exactly agree to all that while actively dying and usually completely passed out.
BTW most people can get Narcan free with insurance, never hurts to carry one.
Free Narcan
I think it is free. I've been in a suboxone program for many years, and they're always trying to give me more Narcan. I'm overloaded with the stuff.
Are there age or other barriers to access?
All we need is the teen assholes that run around the city assaulting people having ease of access to run around assaulting people with syringes, used or unused.
That's weird. Being assaulted
That's weird. Being assaulted with a pointy stick is more dangerous than an unused syringe.
Someone should tell them
Not to run with syringes. That's more dangerous than scissors.
The only barrier is that
The only barrier is that registration is required for everything except Narcan.
Most of these types of machines...
require the user to have registered for an access code to be entered into the machine. I don't know if that's the case for these new machines.
Re: naloxone machines
Naloxone distribution is generally via nasal aerosol kits, not needles.
Okay, Boomer
Somehow you lived through the most violent youth crime wave in history, but since that was your generation it wasn't a big deal?
More of this everywhere please
Add xylazine test strips and harm reduction will go even further, it's not even the opioids killing people so much as these vet tranquilizers getting mixed into them. And if the tranq doesn't kill you, for IV users it can cause horrific necrotic ulcers to form, often far from the injection site.
These are an encouraging step forward in harm reduction. Many seen as "junkies" now are people with chronic pain, particularly veterans, who've had their medication cut off by the DEA/CDC and have nowhere else to obtain pain relief.
Funny how the harder the "war on opioids" has restricted prescription pain medication, the higher the overdose rate has gotten. Almost as if they targeted the wrong population entirely...
The vending machines have
The vending machines have xylazine test strips and wound care kits! Woot!
Envision
I'm confused by the need for one at Envision in JP/Mission Hill. I had thought that this was a staffed center, with security overnight and staff members on each floor. Wouldn't harm reduction services be part of what the staff members engage on, and why replace the in-person interaction with a vending machine?
Provision of all these things makes sense to me - but I would have thought that interaction with staff would make them all more effective (and less prone to additional abuses).
Are they free?
Does anyone believe these machines will not be looted as soon as they are stocked?
I have zero idea what the remedy is for this problem but I definitely recognize a horrible idea when I see one. Is there any reasonable forethought at all before these programs are greenlighted?
hard to say
two alternatives:
1. some kind of morality and solidarity in which people just take one or two
2. looting all of them to turn around and sell them for cash to addicts
Either way, they're out there on the streets I guess. I doubt anyone is going to hoard 100 of them.
Bet they’re more likely to
Bet they’re more likely to discard a used one, if they know they can get a new one for free.
perfect/enemy of good etc.
concerns about potential looting are understandable, but dismissing an initiative outright as a ‘horrible idea’ without offering constructive feedback or alternatives is kinda pointless
it’s unreasonable to assume that a team of health professionals hasn’t already considered the potential challenges, including whatever minute details you might think of
the real question should be: "what safeguards could be implemented to address these risks and ensure the program’s success?"
Assuming they're climate-controlled
It's a big improvement over the simple roadside boxes, given that naloxone spray isn't much help if it's frozen solid
New Chardon
By Brooke courthouse/DMH building would be a good location for one. It could prob be under video surveillance there too.