Selling Syringes (California Barf Alert)

The Sacramento Bee | June 4, 2002 | Sacramento Bee

[Saundra Duffy]

Editorial: Selling syringes

Requiring prescriptions is spreading disease

Sacramento Bee Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Tuesday, June 4, 2002

The syringe is a medical tool of great benefit and harm. Through its needle can flow insulin for the diabetic or heroin for the addict.

While the diabetic usually has no trouble getting a doctor's prescription for syringes, the addict will find it impossible. The lack of a prescription for clean needles is no deterrent to shooting up. Addicts just share needles. This is how diseases such as AIDS and hepatitis C are spread.

This is leading the California Legislature to the inevitable question: Given the rise of diseases that are spread by needles, what is the public benefit of requiring adults to get a prescription for a syringe? The response from the California Medical Association, the California Nurses Association and the California Pharmacists Association is clear: There is no benefit to this requirement. That's why these groups wisely support SB 1785 by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara.

SB 1785 would allow people over age 18 to buy up to 30 syringes at a time without a prescription.

Under SB 1785, syringes would still be stored behind the counter of a pharmacist and sold only by licensed pharmacies. The bill would not force pharmacies to sell syringes without a prescription -- it would merely give them the option.

It's a healthy option to have. California is only one of six states with a law like this still on the books. It's a law that is a prescription for the continued spread of disease, and the Legislature should dump it.

[Saundra Duffy]

When an addict is finished with his CLEAN needle, it isn't CLEAN anymore and he/she flicks it away (like a cigaret butt). That's when some innocent little kid strolls by and picks it up and starts playing with it. Nowhere in this bill do they deal with the problem of careless addicts discarding of the syringes in un unsafe/unhealthy manner. It's infuriating.

I called the State Legislature this morning and got the poop on the bill. It passed the Senate Health & Safety Committee 9 to 2. The No's were Haynes & Morrow. The Yes's were Ortiz, Kuehl, Vincent, Chesbro, Polanco, Escutia, Romero, Figueroa & Vasconcellos. Currently, the bill sits in the Assembly "on the desk" (whatever that means). The Assembly is every bit as full of liberal democraps as the Senate so it's probably a done deal.

I don't know how much longer I can stand living in California. Sometimes . . .

One time when I was forced to live with a heroin addict (family member), a found dirty syringe beneath the cushions of the couch. My little boy was only about four at that time.

[cake_crumb]

OOOOOOH....ooooh....may I rant now???....'cause I have got a serious gripe...well founded too.

Back in the 80's, while I lived in Virginia, I was diagnosed as being deathly allergic to wasps. I was issued a prescription for the standard sting kit of the day : an epinephrine-filled syringe, a small tourniquet made of cord and two red pills, for in case I got stung in the face. It was about the size of a cigarrette pack. Fit easily into the pockets of the chambray shirts I love to wear.

I get stung about once a year. I love the outdoors, and refuse to allow some mindless d@mn bug to trap me in my house because one of it's stings will kill me.

No problem with the regular syringes. THEN the PC happy people came along, and said I might sell of give away my used syringes. I find that truly insulting - and EXTREMELY OFFENSIVE - to both my personal intellect and integrity.

NOW the PC crowd has forced me to use this HUGE, one piece monstrosity. Comes in this big tube. A syringe about 7 inches long. It does not fit in my purse. It does not fit in my shirt pocket. It does not fit in the back pocket of my jeans. When I get stung, and need to give myself a shot, I have to slam myself in a large muscle with such force that I'm bruised for months....because the needle will not pop out without a certain set amount of force used upon the device. I have given shots since I was a kid, both intramuscular and intraveneus. Not even a couple of "thumps" before the "stab" makes the shot any easier (let alone less painful) to give. These new things make you look like Norman Bates in "Psycho".

I HATE those needles....and it's the flippin' drug addicts, and their PC handlers, who have forced me to depend on them, and all because some DRUGGIE might reuse my needle...as if I am ever careless enough to have EVER given anyone a chance to do that.

[cake_crumb]

You know, they tried that in Swizerland...it didn't cut down on fluid transfer diseases. Switzerland tried to add "legal free" - or something like that - areas in parks where the druggies could use their clean, state-distributed needles in police-free peace. Not only did AIDS increase exponentially, so did the drug addicts...attracted not for the "clean" needles, but for the parks where they could stay stoned without worrying abut being arrested.

[Britton J Wingfield]

That sounds like the rigs they use to inject atropine in case you get nerve gassed. Never had to use one, and now I'm doubly glad.

[steveo]

SB 1785 would allow people over age 18 to buy up to 30 syringes at a time without a prescription.

So they want to raise the age for buying ciggybutts to 21 years but allow syringes to be sold to those under 18??

To quote a convicted rep; "BEAM ME UP!"

[goldstategop]

Liberal compassion is heck shoot yerself up and the heck with the consequences. If you're gonna die anyway, our bent is to make it as easy for you as possible, so don't even think about kicking your habit. No wonder the California Rats want to give drug addicts clean needles --- it beats making them go cold turkey. After all victims need help doing it, not changing risk prone conduct that brought them into trouble in the first place. Yup, like our liberals friends say --- leave no addict behind!!!

[tacticalogic]

The whole thing seems kind of weird to me. I'm out here in flyover country, and I know of at least 3 farm supply stores locally that stock syringes and needles. Two of them have a refrigerator in the back of the store where they keep the antibiotics. You just pick up whatever you want and take it to the checkout counter.

[SSN558]

"I know of at least 3 farm supply stores locally that stock syringes and needles."

I lived in Sacramento Valley in the early 80's and used to pick up syringes at the feed store, no problem. They did have a log book and you did have to show a driver license, but that was it. I think drug addicts favor the syringes with really small needles. The larger sizes you would use for subcutaneous injections of animals wouldn't do the job.

[tacticalogic]

I lived in Sacramento Valley in the early 80's and used to pick up syringes at the feed store, no problem. They did have a log book and you did have to show a driver license, but that was it. I think drug addicts favor the syringes with really small needles. The larger sizes you would use for subcutaneous injections of animals wouldn't do the job.

I bought a package of small syringes, a package of needles, and an ampule of erythromycin for the dog once. I don't recall them asking me for any ID at all. I bought the smallest needles they had, and they were bigger than what they use to give you a flu shot, but definitely smaller than that spike they put in your arm at the Red Cross.