WHALLEY - A program responsible for the cleanup of hundreds of used needles a day in Surrey might see its end in September due to funding cuts. As the Now reported last week, the Downtown Surrey BIA is calling for expansion of the needle program due to used syringes becoming an "ever-growing concern" in the area over the past two years. Lookout Emergency Aid Society's provincial gaming grant is not being renewed and as a result, their peer-lead 'Rig Dig' needle recovery program is in crisis. [continues 328 words]
It is without doubt ironic that you use the word 'crack' in your editorial when hundreds of millions of Canadian dollars are thrown down the drain with regards to the so-called "harm reduction" in the form of freebies to the drug dealers and drug addicts. Like all things, it started with a simple idea of giving syringes to prevent the spread of hepatitis. Then they were advised by the drug companies to give them crack pipes, push sticks, mouth pieces, swabs, heroin fryers and rubber bands etc. Please note the rubber bands are medical rubber bands and the crack pipes are medical crack pipes. That way the drug companies make more profit. [continues 94 words]
Every day, hundreds of discarded needles are picked up from Whalley streets, many of them just steps from City Hall. Now, a downtown business group is offering up fresh solutions. On one side of the street, children glide up and down on their skateboards at Chuck Bailey skate park. Their laughter fills the air. On the other side of 107A Avenue, not far away, a homeless man named Robert sits on the ground behind a tree, shrieking while feverishly clapping his hands. His belongings, including a handful of needles, are strewn about on a damp, dirty piece of carpet. [continues 1390 words]
Future archaeologists will no doubt be needing lots of Band-Aids as they dig down into certain Whalley neighbourhoods where one would be hard pressed, figuratively speaking, to find a haystack among all the discarded needles. What a legacy. There's very little that's civilized about people dumping their disgusting, bloodied hypodermic syringes in our city's parks. We have needles on curbsides, needles on pathways. Even needles stuck in trees... and within sight of city hall. Rig Dig, an outfit that collects and disposes of these disgusting relics of drug abuse, gathered 250 in two hours on Monday within the downtown core. [continues 73 words]
EDITOR: The public relations and health departments of the county would like us to believe that the needle exchange program is in the best interests of all concerned. If this is an exchange program, why are there used needles all over the area, especially in industrial parks where the homeless tend to congregate? It's because it isn't a true exchange program that requires any degree of responsibility on the part of the user. And because there are no controls in place, the health and well-being of the general public is at risk. [continues 69 words]
UKIAH - Mendocino County's needle exchange is reached off Highway 101 after winding through verdant hills and past multimillion-dollar wineries. It's a simple two-story bungalow with white lace curtains on a Ukiah street where, on a recent sunny afternoon, several drug addicts waited to exchange used syringes. Operated as part of the Mendocino County AIDS/Viral Hepatitis Network, it collected and redistributed about 127,000 needles last year over the course of 6,259 visits, said Libby Guthrie, the network's executive director. [continues 876 words]
You have found a used needle, in one of the last places you ever expected - or wanted - to see one. On the playground. Inside the schoolyard. On the beach. Now what? Shiloh Sukkau was shocked at first. Then resigned. Now she's upset. Same with Joel Reid and Jessica Leung, and now they're speaking out. Three people, unknown to each other, living and working in different parts of the city. Finding dirty needles in public places. Kids' spaces. In this permissive city, where open drug use is sadly common, people have finally reached a boiling point. They're fed up with finding dangerous materials left behind by intravenous drug users, whose numbers in Vancouver exceed 12,000, according to local health authorities. [continues 715 words]
Special needs teacher Mariya Astashenkava has a morning ritual when she arrives at Lord Roberts Annex elementary school in Vancouver's West End. Before the kids can use the playground, Astashenkava and other staff comb the area looking for used hypodermic needles left behind by drug addicts who frequent Nelson Park at night. "Every morning we walk around looking for used needles," she said Tuesday after the ongoing problem was made public by the school's Parent Advisory Committee. "We even find used condoms and lots of cigarette butts." [continues 297 words]
WEST END: Morning Cleanup A Necessity For Staff At Lord Roberts Annex Elementary Special needs teacher Mariya Astashenkava has a morning ritual when she arrives at Lord Roberts Annex elementary school in Vancouver's West End. Before the kids can use the playground, Astashenkava and other staff comb the area looking for items left behind by drug addicts who frequent Nelson Park at night. "Every morning we walk around looking for used needles," she said Tuesday after the ongoing problem was made public by the school's parent advisory committee. "We even find used condoms and lots of cigarette butts." [continues 316 words]
MANITOULIN - It is still unclear as to how the Sudbury and District Health Unit's (SDHU) harm reduction supplies and services programming will roll out on Manitoulin, but members of the Manitoulin Harm Reduction Committee have realized a need when it comes to safe needle use on the Island. Jeanette Cyr, a public health nurse specializing in sexual health with the SDHU, explained that the harm reduction supplies and services programming is just in the preliminary phase and will be different for each community, based on that community's needs. "It needs to fit the needs of the clients," she said. [continues 347 words]
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - As New Hampshire lawmakers decide whether to allow needle exchange programs, some of the biggest debate has been over how to handle the smallest amounts of drugs. Under current law, hypodermic needles and syringes can be dispensed only by pharmacists, and possessing a syringe containing any amount of heroin or other controlled drug is a felony. But faced with the state's growing drug crisis, the Legislature is considering a bill that would both clear the way for programs that allow drug users to swap dirty syringes for clean ones and would decriminalize residual amounts of drugs in syringes. It passed the House on Wednesday and now heads to the Senate. [continues 206 words]
No Budget Yet: Top Doc How Much Will Safe Injection Sites Cost Toronto? Dr. David McKeown, the city's chief medical officer of health, can't say right now, but they hope the province will help fund the three proposed drug injection sites that will be scattered across the city. McKeown is in the midst of consulting the public about his recommendation to allow three existing clinics that offer harm reduction services to begin to provide supervised injections. "We have a sense of what the scale of the programs should be, but we don't have budgets yet - that'll come later on," McKeown told the Toronto Sun's editorial board Wednesday. [continues 321 words]
Dead people don't recover. That's the working principle behind harm reduction: Avoiding the ultimate harm that could befall drug addicts by facilitating lesser harms, primarily via aiding and abetting in the consumption of those drugs in a safer environment. The idea is somewhat counterintuitive. It also puts the addict at the centre of a radical social policy that doesn't always give sufficient consideration to the broader community that will be affected. Good intentions can lead to bad consequences. [continues 787 words]
Plan May Need Boost in Police Presence, Cop Association Boss Says Neighbourhoods that end up with supervised drug-injection sites may need more cops, the head of Toronto's police union warned. Toronto's chief medical officer of health, Dr. David McKeown, is expected to release a report Monday on drug injection sites. A source confirmed McKeown will recommend a pilot project of three to five supervised drug-injection sites in the city. Toronto Public Health refused to discuss the pilot project and said McKeown was unavailable for an interview. [continues 465 words]
Discarded needles are becoming an increasing problem in the downtown Duncan area. The city's public works department has sent a memo to businesses downtown that staff have been encountering a lot of discarded needles in the area that are being left in garbage cans, public washrooms, parks, trails and other sites. The memo stated that the number of discarded needles being found in the area is up to approximately two dozen a month, a dramatic increase from just six months ago. [continues 285 words]
It's concerning on a number of levels that the volume of used needles being found around town has seen a big spike in the last six months. About two dozen a month isn't a reason to panic, certainly, but it's enough to make us want to know why there's so many turning up in our public places all of a sudden. Make no mistake, it is highly unlikely that these needles are from random diabetics needing to give themselves insulin. [continues 284 words]
The Volunteer- Run Nonprofit, Started by Uci Medical Students, Aims to Lower Addicts' Exposure to Infections. A year ago, a group of UC Irvine medical students realized that Orange County was missing what they considered an important public health service that every major city in California had access to: a clean- needle exchange program. So they decided to do something about it. The students organized with partners across the region and submitted a plan to the California Department of Public Health. The agency rejected the plan last summer, noting a lack of community support and funding for a program. [continues 544 words]
OTTAWA- The Liberal government should implement prison-based needle and syringe programs to address rates of HIV and hepatitis C estimated to be 10 to 30 times higher than in the general population, proponents say. Emily van der Meulen of Ryerson University, the lead author of a recent study, said she wants to see the government review evidence on the effectiveness of programs that have operated in countries like Switzerland for more than 20 years. "I'm hopeful that the government will look to this evidence, as well as to our recent research report," she said. [continues 333 words]
A group of volunteers plans to give away clean syringes to drug addicts Saturday afternoon at the Santa Ana Civic Center, launching a weekly effort - the first of its kind in Orange County - to prevent the spread of HIV and hepatitis C. Both diseases are commonly spread among users who share needles along with the "cookers" and "cottons" used to dissolve and filter drugs. Sterile supplies are scarce in Orange County, said state health officer Dr. Karen Smith. Volunteers from the nonprofit Orange County Needle Exchange Program will set up behind a folding table near City Hall in an area where hundreds of homeless people gather. [continues 423 words]
Are these bleeding hearts serious? How about the staff/ guards do their job and stop the drugs from getting into the prison in the first place? That would seem like an even more cost-effective way of fighting the growing HIV and hep C problem. Taxpayers are already paying for luxuries for criminals that citizens that follow our laws don't get free (cable, eye glasses, dental care, prescription drugs, food, roof over their head, etc). Since the 1970s, we have allowed the bleeding hearts to make Canadian prisons into a vacation resort (a free one at that). Criminals have not turned into model citizens, they have just become more violent and bold, with no fear of going to a prison "resort." C. W. Carpenter Ottawa (Have to disagree on that. Sentences may be too light for some crimes, but we're under no illusion that prison time is fun time.) [end]
