Syringes

Veterinarians are criticizing a move by Safeway grocery stores to sell over-the-counter medicines for animals -- including vaccination kits containing hypodermic syringes.A newspaper advertisement on Sunday announced that the "Pharm-assist" program would offer, "at substantial savings and optimum convenience," prescription medicines that previously could only be bought at a veterinarian's office. The ad also said pet owners could buy non-prescription vaccines for their dogs and cats, which they presumably would administer by syringe, at Safeway pharmacies.

Aberdeen Linwood O. Burke, 47, of the 400 block of Chestnut Street, was charged Tuesday with obstructing and hindering police and second-degree assault. Sara Montgomery, 30, of the 300 block of North Philadelphia Boulevard, was charged Tuesday with fourth-degree burglary, trespassing and theft between $1,000 and $10,000. Teon Lamar Edwards, 29, of the 300 block of Oxford Avenue, was charged Wednesday with distributing drugs and possessing marijuana. Fruit trees were vandalized with chemicals Sunday in the 3400 block of Nova Scotia Road.

In the chilly wind and spitting rain, a dozen people lined up alongside the Winnebago, quietly waiting their turn. One by one, they climbed into the warm van, nodding hello.Then they got down to business.Reaching deep in their pockets, plastic bags and even a child's lunch box decorated with cartoon characters, they pulled out handfuls of syringes -- needles they had used to inject themselves with heroin and cocaine. Some had five or six, others as many as 80.This is the Baltimore City Health Department's Needle Exchange Program.

In 2009, Congress passed legislation reversing the decades-old ban on the use of federal funding for syringe exchange but, for unclear reasons, in late 2011, it reversed this decision, again withholding federal funding from programs that provide drug users with sterile needles and syringes. This month, Congress approved the health spending budget for the rest of this fiscal year without lifting the ban. This lack of action worsens public health problems, makes our communities less safe, and increases future financial burdens on taxpayers.

After blood-filled syringes and rubber gloves washed out of a Canton storm drain into the Baltimore harbor recently, city investigators began tracking down the source.They are planning to identify medical sites, such as clinics, labs and doctor's offices, in the areas of Southeast Baltimore where streets drain into the tunnel. Health officials plan to notify those facilities and local physicians, sternly reminding them of laws that require safe disposal of medical waste.It is the latest incident in a chronic situation.

Led by Baltimore's mayor and health commissioner, officials of needle-exchange programs meeting here yesterday expressed fury and frustration with President Clinton's decision this week not to provide federal funding for their controversial strategy to slow the spread of AIDS.But they said needle-exchange programs will continue toproliferate -- even where giving out clean syringes is against the law -- because they work."I'm very angry," Health Commissioner Peter C. Beilenson told more than 300 health advocates at the North American Syringe Exchange Convention.

Michele Brown lays three syringes on the table in front of a pretty, 27-year-old blond woman with a tattoo of Tigger on her upper right arm. One after another, Brown uncaps each of the syringes to show the younger woman the needle. "This one has a long needle with a fine point," Brown says. "This one has a long needle but a thicker point. It's the sturdiest. "And this one," she says of the last syringe, "this one has a short needle and a fine point. That's the one most people like." The young woman elects to go with the popular choice, and Brown drops a dozen or more into a brown paper lunch bag. Next she dangles a tourniquet in front of the woman.

In response to health care workers' worries about HIV, Maryland might follow the lead of California and require hospitals to use syringes designed to reduce the risk of accidental needle-pricks.The General Assembly will hold a hearing this week on a proposal to direct the state Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board to develop rules by 2001 requiring safer needles.The legislation, drafted by Del. Dan K. Morhaim, a Baltimore County Democrat who is also an emergency room doctor, is part of a national trend.

Walking right up to the bright red mailbox, the Baltimore man glanced around, nervously pulled down the lid and dropped a needle inside.Like other injection drug users, he has begun using a converted mailbox as a place to get rid of his dirty needles. The experiment, launched about a month ago on four city street corners, aims to create an easy way for addicts to dispose of their used needles, rather than tossing them in gutters, alleys and sidewalks. The boxes were donated by the U.S. Postal Service to the city, whose workers collect the needles weekly.

County police have charged a homeless woman, found with her 3-year-old son in a Glen Burnie motel room littered with syringes and drugs, with child abuse and drug possession.Officers were called to the Budget Motel in the 4800 block of Ritchie Highway before 2 p.m. Monday for a dispute between the manager and a patron. Police said the manager wanted the woman to leave because she had not paid.When officers escorted the woman to the room, police said, they found syringes in the sink with suspected heroin, two vials of what police identified as cocaine and 22 tablets of Percocet, a painkiller, in a prescription bottle with another person's name.

A patient believed to have contracted hepatitis C from a rogue medical worker has sued Columbia-based Maxim Staffing Solutions Inc. for failing to report the traveling technician to legal authorities even though the company knew he had stolen narcotics and put patients at risk. The lawsuit, filed by Kansas resident Linda Ficken and her husband, William, says that Maxim was one of three medical institutions that enabled worker David Kwiatkowski's illicit behavior. The institutions' inaction allowed him to repeat his behavior for four more years at hospitals around the country, where he came in contact with thousands of patients, the lawsuit claims.

Howard County police have charged a man with holding up a pharmacist in Columbia with a syringe filled with blood that he claimed was tainted with the AIDS virus according to authorities. Police said the man got away with $27,000 worth of prescription drugs. The authorities said they confirmed the syringe contained blood and are testing it to determine if it indeed carried the virus. The suspect has been identified as Benjamin Frederick Blessing, 52, of the 5200 block of Golden Sky Court in Columbia.

Of course, those contentions are that McNamee injected Clemens with steroids and human growth hormone 16 times in 1998, 2000 and 2001. The physical evidence that McNamee is said to have handed over to investigators are syringes and gauze pads with traces of Clemens' blood. Reportedly, McNamee produced the material about a month ago. It's all vaguely reminiscent of Monica Lewinsky preserving Bill Clinton's DNA evidence on the infamous blue dress that helped prove the two had inappropriate moments together.

CHICAGO -- Being a journalist, I'm no expert on making money. But you don't have to be Warren Buffett to recognize one way to get rich: Find someone who will give you $600,000 if you give him 25 cents. A few swaps like that, and you're a permanent resident of Easy Street. You might assume that no such deal exists and that if it did, no one would pass it up. You would be wrong. This advantageous exchange is available any time our leaders in Washington want to take it. But so far, they've refused.

A Laurel nurse was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison for trying to kill her ex-husband by stabbing him in the buttock with a syringe containing a drug so potent it is used in the execution of convicted murderers -- and so easily absorbed that its presence usually goes undetected. Donald Hoard, a hospital records coordinator from Greenbelt, had gone to his ex-wife's house in March 2004 to pick up their son when Ann Hoard attacked him with the syringe and said, "I want my son back," an Anne Arundel County prosecutor said.

A man accused of using a syringe to rob a sandwich shop in Carney has been arrested, Baltimore County police said yesterday. Dana Anthony Molinaro, 39, of the 2400 block of Fairway in Dundalk was arrested last week and charged with one count of armed robbery, police said. Police said Molinaro wielded a syringe that appeared to be filled with blood during the June 6 robbery of a Subway restaurant in the 8800 block of Waltham Woods Road in Carney. Detectives are investigating other robberies of area businesses this summer in which a syringe was used, police said.

A Manchester man, who is serving 18 months in an unrelated Baltimore case, was sentenced yesterday in Carroll Circuit Court to a concurrent prison term of one year and one day after he was convicted of heroin possession.Keith P. Domzalski, 21, of the 5000 block of Grave Run Road pleaded not guilty but agreed to accept the prosecutor's version of what happened.Court records show Domzalski was arrested Feb. 6 at residence in the 3100 block of Church St. in Manchester after police found three syringes.

A patient believed to have contracted hepatitis C from a rogue medical worker has sued Columbia-based Maxim Staffing Solutions Inc. for failing to report the traveling technician to legal authorities even though the company knew he had stolen narcotics and put patients at risk. The lawsuit, filed by Kansas resident Linda Ficken and her husband, William, says that Maxim was one of three medical institutions that enabled worker David Kwiatkowski's illicit behavior. The institutions' inaction allowed him to repeat his behavior for four more years at hospitals around the country, where he came in contact with thousands of patients, the lawsuit claims.

A man who threatens store clerks with what appears to be a blood-filled syringe has robbed four Baltimore County businesses since the beginning of last month, county police said. Yesterday, police released video surveillance tape taken during a robbery July 11 of a High's convenience store in the 4000 block of North Point Blvd. in North Point Village in hopes of learning the man's identity. The crimes have been reported in the southeast and northeast areas of the county, police said, and generally have occurred late in the day. No one has been hurt in the robberies, according to police.

CHICAGO - Heroin addiction is a regrettable condition, and there are lots of theories about how to help people overcome it. But it is a truism, not a theory, that you can't help addicts once they are dead. Step 1 in assisting or even forcing heroin users into more socially productive behavior is keeping them alive. This elementary insight is one resisted by many supporters of the drug war. They fear that if we reduce the risk of gruesome death from injecting heroin or other drugs, everyone this side of Hilary Duff will soon be lying in a gutter with a needle in her arm. They don't want drug users to practice their habit in a less dangerous way; they want them to give it up, period.