'Horrible stuff': New problems with dirty needles in Eugene
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EUGENE, Ore. - A drop in funding forced the HIV Alliance to make cuts to the needle exchange program in Eugene.
Now the nonprofit fears more dirty syringes will end up on the streets.
The Alliance's One for One Program has delivered on its name for years--giving one clean needle in exchange for a used one without limit. But now the organization said they can only give 100 clean syringes to each program participant, per visit.
“They might not be safely discarding them because there is no incentive for them to bring them into us," said program director Renee Yandel at the HIV Alliance in Eugene on Friday.
Sara Burchell said her son has found multiple dirty needles on their block in Eugene in the past month.
"Who knows what kind of horrible stuff could have come if he had stepped on it," she said.
Yandel said individuals can contract HIV and hepatitis C virus if pricked by an infected syringe. She added that the risk of spreading hepatitis C is much greater than HIV because the virus can live in a used syringe for days.
After her son found the second used syringe on their block, Burchell called the sheriff's office. They referred her to the HIV Alliance for help.
Yandel said volunteers make weekly pickups of improperly discarded syringes.
"We pick those up with the grabber, put them in the sharps container, and take them for disposal," she said.
But this year, one of HIV Alliance's key contributors donated 30 percent less money to the organization.
As a result, Yandel said they've had to cut back on the needle exchange program they run.
Since HIV Alliance is taking in fewer used syringes, more are ending up where they don't belong.
If you find used syringes in your community, the HIV Alliance said you can call them for help with safe disposal:
The HIV Alliance is located at 1966 Garden Ave. in Eugene.
Again, why encourage drug use by removing the penalties?  Let them buy their own needles or quit using heroin.  Encouraging drug use is a crime which reaches down to the youngest teens to the oldest derelicts  Surely this is not a good thing - sort of like pimping for heroin.
Hopefully us private citizens will continue to help maybe even give a bit more. One thing we can count on or not count on is the City of Eugene doing anything to help! The homeless in Eugene is not really a concern of the Mayor, the city manager or the city counsel. Sure they do something here and there but that's just for bragging rights. Applying band-aids won't address the problem. They just don't want to spend the money needed to fix this homeless problem. And it could be fixed. Would it be cheap, of course not but what is, that is worth doing?Â
They (City Government) steal at least 10% of the money they have control over. And mis-manage another 60% or so!
Maybe the City of Eugene can use some of that $15 million or so earmarked to build a new City Hall. Or maybe instead of supporting a golf course they could spend that money on the people who are at their lowest with no roof over their heads! Many who are children and Veterans!
Auh, I know its all wishful thinking, after all we're talking about the people in power who are working for the citizens of Eugene! I guess they (City Hall) only work for those who have places to live!Â
My bad....
From all of the local news I have seen lately, it is apparent that heroin has made a big comeback with purer/lesser stepped on forms of it than back in the day.
NEPs have seen federal funding severely curtailed the last two years. Last Summer, my neighbor in Eugene caught some junkie using his garden hose to clean out his dirty needles. AND, I have heard of former junkies who started up again because they found out that they could get clean needles for free. Still others might be more inclined to experiment with the horse just one time, and probably get hooked, because safe needles are so readily available.Â
So very controversial, like the many organizations passing out condoms to reduce the risk of sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy instead of promoting abstinence from sex.
NEP policy makers reason that harm reduction is the key since abstinence and cold turkey initiatives advocated by the far right are not realistic.
Most people like me will never have enough info to determine whether budget cuts to the NEP are/were a good thing for Eugene.
Expert opinions w/o circular reasoning would be beneficial to the taxpayers.
For every study by some nutjob showing passing out needles is a successful way to curb infection, there is certainly one or more that shows otherwise.Â
 Injecting drugs into your veins is a slow death sentence...oh...AND it's illegal...no tax dollars to support it.
Prostitution for any purpose (in this case to support a drug habit) in Oregon is illegal.
Buying, selling, possessing drugs is illegal.
You don't put out a fire by adding clean fuel to it.
@flor3nc3 ---the consensus on this thread is bending me to the right on this issue. Last year, I had once or twice entertained the notion of trying horse for the first time in my life, just because I learned where to  get a clean&safe mode of delivery to my veins, and that was certainly the only thing preventing me from ever experimenting with it when I was younger.
@peace
Those that love you would be heartbroken if you felt so empty with living life you would resort to plunging poison into your veins to escape it. Those that don't even know you (like myself) would hug you for making the right choice when faced with such a decision.
@flor3nc3Â i really appreciate that, but you'll need to take that up with God, 'cuz he keeps knocking me on my can, like that Job character in the bible, no matter how many right decisions I make.
Stephan King's "Storm of the Century" has a different version about the Book of Job. It says that Job kept begging, whining, belly aching, and griping about all of his life's hardships, and demanded that God give him a sign to commend his loyalty.
God sends down a giant thunder bolt of lightening 2' from where Job is standing that knocks Job on his can, and says, "I don't know why I make you suffer so Job. I think it is just because there is something about you, that just PI$$E$ ME OFF!" Â
@flor3nc3Â ---I would probably be a NIMBY if the city council wanted to put an NEP on my block. A food bank OK. An NEP No Way!Â
Live by the needle, die by the disease. Sounds like a simple philosophy for someone who chooses to live that lifestyle.
@Twistthewrist
>>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0t0EW6z8a0<<<
I found a homeless man in the trash what are they doing about that.........Answer.........NOTHING on both counts.
If you want to curb illegal drug use, stop passing out needles. Stop making them available to the Junkies at no charge. You will find fewer of them when the users start dying off from their nasty infectious "kits"
@flor3nc3Â ---only problem with that policy is that they won't die fast enough. They will spread hep C and HIV in a geometric progression to people who do not use drugs. So, handing out clean needles is an exponentially lessor of the two evils, to protect the rest of us from epidemics.
@peace Please cite your evidence. I can't recall reading anything about any "geometrical progression" of the spread of hep c or HIV in Lane county up to the time when the liberal idiots running the city decided to arbitrarily (yes ARBITRARILY) start passing out needles.
Again, please cite the source or sources of your claim.
@OregonOrator ---all the tripe and plenty more of it out there is what the Eugene policy makers use. They will say that their program is constantly preventing outbreaks with all the increase in  heroin use in this town over the last some odd years. You may have your outbreak stories if they ever eliminate the NEP,  Or, we might have experts who say that the heroin outbreak is because of NEPs.
It may very well be just another story of "The King and His Elephants" And, I thank you for calling me on it.
@peace @OregonOrator Yawn.  That's all tripe. Show me the stories about Eugene and the geometricd progression here.
@OregonOrator https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2155rank.html
Swaziland has high poverty, multible partners, no help from the their govt to provide or even subsidize the education and usage of prophylactics.
With over a quarter of the pop. HIV/AIDS in just a couple of generations, it is probable that geometric progression took place several times in 40 years.
Junkies are in poverty, have multiple partners in sex AND shooting up, and will always live in Eugene, among non-junkies, just as sure as people will always have sex in Eugene.
We hold these truths to be self-evident. BTW, Happy George Washington's B-Day !Â
@OregonOratorhttp://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/17/magazine/l-science-technology-and-aids-777587.html
Science, Technology And AIDSPublished: May 17, 1987As always, Stephen Jay Gould casts biological issues in a stimulating perspective (''The Terrifying Normalcy of AIDS,'' April 19). However, I believe anyone writing about AIDS should explain that geometric progression works both ways. That is, any interruption or short circuit in this exponential expansion in the numbers of future AIDS victims will create an exponential shrinkage.
Any people who abandon a high-risk life style - including, of course, rejection of a multipartner sexual pattern for monogamy - are doing themselves a big favor. They are doing the rest of the species a big favor, too - exponentially speaking. NORMA MOHR Chevy Chase, Md.
I think this article means an oz. of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Or, better safe than sorry.
Junkies tend to live in poverty and sell themselves for sex, and just 1 needle (often used among a pair or group of junkies) could affect/infect anyone else they come in contact with (2-4-16-etc.) over the course of a few more days.
Policy makers figure that throwing clean needles out there is away to "short circuit" the growth.
Those crazy liberals throwing rubbers at the kids in the 80s and 90s was a successful short circuit. A necessary evil that the conservatives would not deal with at the time.Â
ÂSeems like a self-fulfilling prophecy to me.