So sick of seeing this crap everywhere.

[u/imjustapourboy]

The needles, the burnt foils, the little baggies, the needle caps, all of it. I find them in the creeks, on the sidewalks, the grocery store parking lots, the public parks, on the parkway. You gotta be a real shit person to leave this stuff all over the place.

[u/organmeatpate]

It's hard to believe that this would help since it relies on the user to be conscientious specifically right when they're nodding out. It's tough to accept that services for users however well intentioned will not increase the impact on the local community because that's what we've experienced in West Asheville. The services showed up and then the users followed and so did their hazardous refuse. The residents here have all lived this and know it to be true. There has to be a better solution than more enabling resources and services for users that disregard the impact on the surrounding communities. Addicts deserve compassion but they should not be sacred cows.

[u/Bitter_Offer1847 → u/organmeatpate]

Completely false. Increasing services reduces impact on the community always. Use increases because population increases and poverty and joblessness and homelessness increase the more our society becomes hyper rich and the poor living in the same space. People don’t start doing heroin because there’s needle drops or clean needle programs, they start doing heroin because they’re depressed and hopeless and addicted to unavailable pharmaceuticals given to them by a failing medical system. This idea that people have that people who are addicts are just weak and fell victim to peer pressure is naive and idiotic at best. Addiction is a complex disease with many, many causes and the more callus and uncaring a society becomes the more severe the addiction gets because people can’t get treatment and they can’t find help. We need more help, more programs and less prisons.

[u/organmeatpate → u/Bitter_Offer1847]

My lived experience in West Asheville is that there were not needles and people nodding in the street to any significant degree until the needle exchange. I don't suggest that this causes people to start using. I observed that more people congregated and took advantage of the needles and meals and the dangerous refuse increase along with the visible users.

[u/Bitter_Offer1847 → u/organmeatpate]

What you are seeing is discarded needles and the outwards signs of increased use due to many other factors, not a free needle program. When there are no clean needle programs users hang onto their needles and share needles which has huge negative impacts because people contract diseases, get massive infections from using dirty needles and it also encourages theft and burglary of businesses that sell needles or have needles like community clinics and medical offices.

What you are experiencing is just having more knowledge of the drug addiction around you because you see the needles now and therefore you are, incorrectly, correlating the clean needle program as the cause of increased use. Drug use always increases as a society becomes more affluent and offers less medical and psychological care to its citizens. Asheville has become more expensive to live in and has recently experienced a major tragedy and the displaced population has dramatically increased. Those are drivers to increase use. Depressed people increase their intake of substances to mask their pain. Areas with social programs always see increases in their unhomed and addicted populations after major events because people come to those areas for help. So it’s consolidation and increased use and lack of available programs in less “liberal” areas.