Signs of Spring

So, when you live in an urban setting you have different signs of the arrival of spring than your suburban or rural brethren.

Here are my signs of urban spring (northern climes version):

1. The return of motorcycle cops
2. The hare Krishna parade (if 5 loopy looking goofs with a drum can be called a parade)
3. The return of the drunks to Carré St-Louis
4. Theenormouss pot holes everywhere
5. The smell of manure that is actually rottingvegetationn that got caught under the snow last fall

To this list I must add a new one:
6. Syringe disposal.

Under my sink, where most of my friends keep cleaning products or garbage bags (I have this collection as well) I also keep an empty 2L Diet Coke bottle. It's my home made sharps box.

Yesterday I went out and picked up two syringes. One was complete, needle and all, the other was broken off about 5 -7 mm below where the needle would be. I know that some outreach programs are trying to teach users to break the needle off and put it somewhere like a sewer or some such, and I'm hoping this is what happened.

Drug addiction is a horrible problem, a blight upon all of us, etc etc etc... I'm all for treatment over punishment, etc etc etc but (wait, here it comes) I'm really tired of the junkies users not taking the needles to an exchange site. There's one a couple of days a week at one of the local pharmacies, there are several organizations that do it (some are mobile so they are all over the city). The local CLSC has a sharps box on it's outside wall. It just pisses me off. Some little kid could get drugs into their system or infected with something (I know that not all users are ill with HIV/AIDS or other blood born illnesses, but my theory goes that if you're willing to leave your used needles on the ground, you aren't very tidy about other things).