SC residents finding dirty needles near neighborhoods
Residents in Santa Cruz are up in arms over the proliferation of littered drug needles in their neighborhoods.
Damon Bruder lives near a railroad track under an overpass, and he says he has found plenty of hypodermic needles there.
“We’ve found 141+ in the last 12 months in this less than three block area,” said Bruder.
He has been keeping all of the syringes he has found this month in his neighborhood, about 30 so far.
“We have children that walk through here, my grand children want to walk through here, we have tourists that don’t know about the dangers that walk through here to access the boardwalk, the boardwalk is right there,” said Bruder.
A handful of residents attended a community meeting Wednesday night to talk about the issue.
“I found five needles myself, one of them with blood in the chamber. That’s what really got my concern,” said Melissa Freebairn, another Santa Cruz resident.
Their biggest concern centers around Santa Cruz County’s Syringe Services Program, which allows drug addicts to turn in dirty needles in exchange for new ones provided by the health department.
The county says it is a one needle for one needle deal, but some residents claim drug users are getting up to a hundred for just a handful.
“There’s no accountability for the needles once they’re given out, so they get left wherever the addict might have used them because they don’t need another one to get more,” said Bruder.
The county disputes that claim, saying they have rules that prevent over-serving.
“Not everybody who uses needles or gets needles gets them from us,” said Mimi Hall, the director of the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency. “It’s legal in California to obtain needles from pharmacies, there are other avenues to get needles.”
But the county says they do hear these concerns, and moving forward, they will take a closer look at their policies.
Some solutions residents brought up include limiting the number of needles handed out per day, as well as handing out safety needles that can retract so no one gets stuck.
The county hands out clean, new needles to drug addicts to prevent diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C from spreading.
