No ‘solution’ at all
No question that an offshoot of the opioid crisis is the sad and dangerous fact that dirty needles are finding their way into parks and playgrounds and all kinds of places where they pose a public safety risk.
But as usual a member of the Boston City Council has analyzed the problem and come up with a “solution” that is breathtaking in its cluelessness.
City Councilor Annissa Essaibi George wants pharmacies to act as collection points for used needles — because, well, they sell them. And, of course, she would throw in some added paperwork too, requiring the pharmacies to report the number of needles collected to the Inspectional Services Department. The city’s ISD commissioner estimated that would quadruple the number of pharmacy inspections his department would have to do too.
Ryan Kearney, general counsel for the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, testifying at a hearing of the Council’s Government Operations Committee said, “Retail pharmacies are not waste disposal sites.”
And dirty hypodermic needles aren’t soda cans either.
Essaibi George told State House News Service that pharmacies are “a point of contact for consumers, for those that require the use of hypodermic needles — whether they’re unfortunately in active addiction and using it for illicit drug use, or they’re diabetics or have another chronic illness.”
It’s highly doubtful that insulin-dependent diabetics are tossing their used needles into city playgrounds. But addicts surely are. So does the councilor actually imagine a person in the throes of addiction will walk into the local CVS and discreetly deposit a used needle in the appropriate container? Really?
The city already has nine “sharps” collection sites and a Mobile Sharps Team which responds to calls for needle disposal and interacts with drug users. Funding is now available for a second mobile team. AHOPE Boston Needle Exchange distributed 250,000 clean needles and collected 310,000 used ones.
There is a doctrine in the recovery community about meeting people where they are — and it’s a good one. Where they are is not the local pharmacy.