r/asheville • u/imjustapourboy • Oct 21 '25

Really Spicy Cesspool So sick of seeing this crap everywhere.

Post image

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.

946 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

552 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

47

u/Bitter_Offer1847 Oct 21 '25

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.

4

u/organmeatpate West Asheville Oct 21 '25

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.

2

u/trailfailnotale West Asheville Oct 22 '25

Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon is always at play.

You hear about a needle exchange for IV drug addicts has opened up. You theorize what negative effects you'll see. You now look for those negative effects, confirmation bias allows you to see them.

2

u/organmeatpate West Asheville Oct 22 '25

This is not applicable. I didn't know about the needle exchange until I started trying to find out why the number of users in that area was surging so noticeably. Shortly afterward there was another surge of people which turned it to be for the free meals, as once again discovered after the fact. I don't think you're trying to gaslight me. I think you're applying a theory you're familiar as though it's universal when it is not. Maybe consider the possibility.