August 3, 2007
Homeless Kerfuffle, Day Ten: Syringes, Syringes, Everywhere
It's now been ten days since C.W. Nevius went off on the Gav for letting people camp in Golden Gate Park. Things shook out pretty much as you'd expect: follow-up articles , reactions from the Supes, letters to the Editor, promises from the Mayor, frothy commentary here on SFist, and a new issue du jour: what to do with all of the used heroin needles that turn up everywhere?
The Chron article explores two possible remedies: syringes with retractable needles (which cost much more than normal syringes), and 24 hour biohazard drop boxes. It turns out that the San Francisco AIDS foundation, which runs most of the city's needle exchange programs is going to install a drop box at Sixth and Mission within the next six weeks. The idea is that addicts aren't necessarily going to wait around for programs to open to dump their used syringes, hence the drop boxes.
Will all of this work? Tough to say. The SFPD was calling outreach services for one of our neighborhood homeless folks in front of our apartment when we went running this morning, and there were still seven or eight piled-high shopping carts at Alvord Lake in the Park at nine-fifteen. We'll check back in a few weeks - the Chronicle will probably have forgotten all about this by then, but we run through the Haight nearly every day.
Image of a retractable syringe from Pet Remembrance Products.
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"Do you pick your feet in Poughkeepsie?"
Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair
Well, he played his last request
While the room smelled just like death
With an overdose hovering in the air
But life had lost its fun
And there was nothing to be done
But trade his house that he bought on the G, I. Bill
For a flag draped casket on a local heroes' hill
John Prine 1971
Let me get this straight. Junkies, that are strung out, are going to walk to a 24-hour drop box so that their needles won't litter the streets and parks? WTF?
I have this giant red bridge made of gold that I'd like to sell to you. I'm guessing you can't afford it though 'cause you spend all your money on REALLY stooopid shit.
Needles are lining the park and other places because there are used by JUNKIES. The operative word being JUNKIES, I think its both naive and assinine to think that these JUNKIES are going to do anything else besides letting their needle litter fall where it may. You are talking about folks who would rather shit in the open than use a public toilet 10 feet away.
Or shit on themselves as is often the case.
I long for the hot, humid summers and freezing winters of the mid-West just to be free of junkie poo!
Is anyone going to save us?
That was a really rubbish poem
it's a song, actually
http://www.jpshrine.org/lyrics/songs/jpsamstone.html
you know where the Poughkeepsie quote comes from? also 1971, and also about heroin
i agree with the consensus that any notion of drug addicts showing enough responsibility to properly dispose of needles is hilarious at best.
how about somebody introducing a lethal dose of smack into their population?
When I read "a new issue du jour: what to do with all of the used heroin needles that turn up everywhere?," I thought for a moment that you were going to suggest possible crafts projects: Make a chandelier! Decorate a Christmas tree!
hey now, I'm a junkie, and I properly dispose of my sharps.