Clean Needles Now

Some people think that working at a needle exchange would be depressing; I love it and I laugh a lot. 

You’re looking at someone’s cart that was selling used porn on Skid Row, and a text I got from a potential volunteer who decided not to come. I actually get a lot of these last minute texts. 

The really horrible quality picture on top shows how many syringes we take in a week. I’m still blown away by this. Each one of those sharps containers represents thousands of sterile syringes that we provided people with, and they also show how many syringes would have been disposed of improperly if there were no syringe exchange programs.

The bottom picture is of a syringe someone dropped in the mailbox at our office. I have been with CNN for about 8 years and this is only the second time this has happened. not a bad track record.

Was just feeling a little nostalgic. we used to have a clinic at 6th and Gladys, but due to gentrification efforts we were pushed out. the bottom picture was taken inside our greeting room. as you can tell by the top photo, the neighborhood is ripe for quaint antique stores and cafe’s (sarcasm). now we are on the street in a mobile setting. i consider us lucky, many agencies might not have the resources to survive the loss of a clinic.