Seattle's heroin problem and it literally being swept away disgusts me

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

It takes a certain level of immorality and indifference for those who run a city to ignore an exponential and visually obvious heroin epidemic and explosion during an economic BOOM where billions upon billions of public funds are beig spent on tunnels and bridges with no TRUE NEED.

Seattle is disgusting.

Two weeks ago I looked it my office window and saw two people on the phone and a guy face down in a puddle of water. He looks fukkin dead. Nobody reacts besides one tourist. An ambulance ckmes and they haphazardly pull him out of the water. They have absolutely no urgency (note...I just walked over vomit as I'm typing this) and they are just slappig his face and kind of trying to get a pulse. Eventually his legs kick. They call a A REAL ambulance
..(ones with real doctors) and they get him awake. The doctors and ems are crackin jokes....I give them a bit of a pass because THIS IS business as usual. Eventually they find the needle which almost cost him his life.

I lived in metro Detroit and was born up in gary Indiana. Never before have I seen dopefiends just being accepted next to tourists and needles as regular as cigarette butts in the morning. It's truly some other shyt.

Seattle's Heroin Use Through The Eyes of Street Sweepers

At 7 a.m., Lee Townsend starts hitting his “hotspots” in Belltown – the Cinerama, the Crocodile – those high-traffic nightspots where patrons are most likely to leave popcorn bags, cigarette butts and other trash. He sweeps up the litter, then makes a note in his log.

He may call for assistance from a colleague with a power washer over the radio summoning him or her with a code number. “If we run across a needle, it’s a 621-N. If we run across dog feces or human feces, that’s a 612-L,” Townsend said. “So everything we do has a code. And everything we do also is documented.”

Townsend works for Seattle’s Metropolitan Improvement District. His detailed records provide hard numbers for the downtown tenants who pay for these services. They also make him a front-line observer of downtown life.

More residents with dogs means more 612-L on the streets, and more syringes mirror the trends around heroin use nationwide.

Joshua Curtis with the Downtown Seattle Association said street sweepers picked up 753 needles in March, almost 500 of them in the “retail core.”

“And really since 2013 we’ve seen I believe it’s a 500 percent increase in needles that we find on the ground and we pick up and safely dispose of. That was astounding and most of that has happened in the past year,” Curtis said

500% increase in two years?!?!


Heroin deaths spike by 58 percent in Seattle area

Heroin was involved in 156 deaths in the region in 2014, up from 99 the year before — and just 49 in 2009. Overall, there were 314 drug deaths in the area last year, the highest number since 1997, according to a report released Thursday by the University of Washington Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute.

Seattle dying but nobody gives a fukk because we gotta build more multiuse in South lake Union.

Is any place in America this indifferent to a clear and present danger?

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Is any place in America this indifferent to a clear and present danger?

Depends on what one considers a "clear and present danger"

If it extends to beyond heroin then Chicago and its gun violence would fit the bill

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

Depends on what one considers a "clear and present danger"

If it extends to beyond heroin then Chicago and its gun violence would fit the bill

Seattle dope problem isn't violent...its just super super deadly on the users. I don't know if the violence associated with the trade is down south or something but Seattle isn't a violent city besides addicts doing crimes and crack usually spawns that, not heroin

 

[88m3]

I'm pretty sure heroin use has been on the rise nationwide for several years.

What's your solution?


That said I'd rather have a gun problem where I am as opposed to a homeless/junky issue.

 

[tru_m.a.c]

The heroin epidemic is not isolated to Seattle. Every state is dealing with some form of this emergency and has been for a decade now.

Before I get into the issues, we should probably correct a few things..

The first unit to show up was most likely a BLS transport because the 911 caller didn't specify the extent of danger. The second unit was the ALS/medic unit.

There was no urgency because the first call was probably reported as a drunk person. I say that because the procedure for dealing with a heroin overdose is not face slaps and finding a pulse Plus your Seattle medic has access to naloxone, so a heroin overdose is not nearly as "omg omg omg" as you may think.

 

[Big Jo]

The heroin epidemic is not isolated to Seattle. Every state is dealing with some form of this emergency and has been for a decade now.

+1

my parents live in the new jersey suburbs and there's heroin over there too. they did some huge sting a couple years ago and arrested like 30 people

 

[Truth200]

Heroin: Delaware's deadly crisis

 

[tru_m.a.c]

+1

my parents live in the new jersey suburbs and there's heroin over there too. they did some huge sting a couple years ago and arrested like 30 people

It's a natural progression for abusers of opiates

 

[Mixerr Reviews]

The heroin epidemic is not isolated to Seattle. Every state is dealing with some form of this emergency and has been for a decade now.

Before I get into the issues, we should probably correct a few things..

The first unit to show up was most likely a BLS transport because the 911 caller didn't specify the extent of danger. The second unit was the ALS/medic unit.

There was no urgency because the first call was probably reported as a drunk person. I say that because the procedure for dealing with a heroin overdose is not face slaps and finding a pulse Plus your Seattle medic has access to naloxone, so a heroin overdose is not nearly as "omg omg omg" as you may think.

Down here in Texas we've been dealing with meth and marijuana problems. Marijuana and meth are the biggest problems in drug crimes for our state with marijuana being the biggest. People want that legalized but nobody down here has any backbone.

 

[Ed MOTHERFUCKING G]

I'm pretty sure heroin use has been on the rise nationwide for several years.

What's your solution?


That said I'd rather have a gun problem where I am as opposed to a homeless/junky issue.

I don't make policy or work for an organization to fight this issue. Not a fair question.

 

[wire28]

It takes a certain level of immorality and indifference for those who run a city to ignore an exponential and visually obvious heroin epidemic and explosion during an economic BOOM where billions upon billions of public funds are beig spent on tunnels and bridges with no TRUE NEED.

Seattle is disgusting.

Two weeks ago I looked it my office window and saw two people on the phone and a guy face down in a puddle of water. He looks fukkin dead. Nobody reacts besides one tourist. An ambulance ckmes and they haphazardly pull him out of the water. They have absolutely no urgency (note...I just walked over vomit as I'm typing this) and they are just slappig his face and kind of trying to get a pulse. Eventually his legs kick. They call a A REAL ambulance
..(ones with real doctors) and they get him awake. The doctors and ems are crackin jokes....I give them a bit of a pass because THIS IS business as usual. Eventually they find the needle which almost cost him his life.

I lived in metro Detroit and was born up in gary Indiana. Never before have I seen dopefiends just being accepted next to tourists and needles as regular as cigarette butts in the morning. It's truly some other shyt.

Seattle's Heroin Use Through The Eyes of Street Sweepers


500% increase in two years?!?!


Heroin deaths spike by 58 percent in Seattle area



Seattle dying but nobody gives a fukk because we gotta build more multiuse in South lake Union.

Is any place in America this indifferent to a clear and present danger?

good looks, i was planning on visiting the west coast next year and imma make sure to cross seattle off my list

 

[Idaeo]

in San Fran it's even worse. the tech yuppies there have a cute phrase to describe the blatant extremes of the city: "Tofu & Heroin"

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

seems every couple years people put Fentanyl in heroin and it causes the OD's to spike.

 

[Tate]

It's a natural progression for abusers of opiates

This. People start fukking with prescription opiates then after they've sunk 10k into that shyt they realize heroin is a lot cheaper. Problem being that it's also a much bigger public health risk due to needle sharing.

You want some quiet racial hypocrisy go look at all the rust belt governors funding needle exchange programs now that the new heroin user is a white person from the suburbs rather than a black inner city dweller.

 

[ExodusNirvana]

Seattle dope problem isn't violent...its just super super deadly on the users. I don't know if the violence associated with the trade is down south or something but Seattle isn't a violent city besides addicts doing crimes and crack usually spawns that, not heroin

America doesn't have its priorities in order. That's basically what it comes down to.