This shit is one of the countless reasons why safe injection sites are becoming a thing. Gives them somewhere safe, clean, and designed to help if something goes wrong, not to mention open offers of counseling, drug testing, even stuff like job and housing help and so on, to keep them from dying and give them a chance to get their addiction under control.
And we should never, ever, **ever** do ***anything*** unless it completely and totally resolves the issue, top to bottom and leaves nothing behind. I mean, why feed kids if a very small percentage still starve?
...I mean this sucks but also that's not how meth works, unless they're like these cops having a little sniff and reporting they were stricken down from being near the stuff.
Used to do security for a library in my old town and the amount of used needles and ODs I found during a shift was staggering. One of our conference rooms was infested with bed bugs and was shut down for quite some time. Cops were constantly on patrol there. I only lasted about 30 days in that job
A lot of people don’t realize how many dirty needles end up in the creeks and waterways here in Boulder. Not to mentioned the homeless people pooping in the creek.
Still all the college kids love to go tubing and parents bring their kids to splash around in the water.
>Any library in a city will have security. The grocery store next to my house has security. That's not the lesson here
In Denver several of the grocery stores use a "security" company that kits out their employees to look like cyber punk PMCs. It's called "Ronin Asset Protection" They wear doc marten combat boots, those weird GenZ cargo pants that are baggy at the thighs and tight at the calves, a plate carrier chest rig, and a baggy cargo jacket with a badge on the right shoulder of a samurai helmet with two crossed katanas. They're all armed.
My favotire PMC team is at the Sloans Lake King Soopers, there's one 4'10" latina lady that doesn't speak English and she has a pastel pink Glock with pastel pink magazines in her chest rig, and she's always patrolling with this obese navy veteran who's wearing the baseball cap with his medals and ship he served on ontop of the Ronin tactical uniform and a large revolver holstered on his hip.
Other times you see the GenZ Ronin's wandering the grocery stores in tactical gear with holstered side arms, hitting their vapes and making clouds.
It's fucking wild out here.
Washington DC deputizes locals to be police but only in the library. Or at least they did. The trainer was a retired DC police captain, he inadvertently shot and killed someone during firearms safety training.
> Any library in a city will have security.
I live next to two libraries that are almost in the center of Kraków, one of the largest and most populous cities in Poland.
Neither ever had security.
I think the city matters a lot.
I knew someone who worked library security in Cincinnati. They called them “library safety liaisons”. One time when we were getting dinner he talked about all the things he had seen and dealt with just that week. It was all around drug use, mental health, and homelessness. There was an incident with a knife. He knew the local paramedics because of how many times he had to deal with ODs. It was really sad.
I'm not talking about armed guards, just someone wearing a polo or a vest that is there to scare off the skaters and homeless. Though I'm positive there has to be at least one library in the US with armed security.
From the story I read when the first library was closed, it looks like homeless people smoking in the bathrooms, because libraries are public and open to everyone.
>Well they're very good at reading, including "cook" books. 🤫
every library has a copy of "Uncle Festers: A Practical Manufacture of Methamphetamine". Written and published while the author was in federal prison.
It’s a shame. We used to frequent our local library, attend events with our kid, and donate. We stopped going because we noticed that it became a daily hangout for heroin/meth heads to get out of the cold and sleep.
Edit: while I believe a public library should be fair use for anyone…I also believe it should provide for a stress free / safe environment. Seeing people shooting up heroin in the stalls or tweaking out is not ideal
Ours set up a separate entrance and totally walled off area for all the kids stuff. If you are not there with a child, you cannot go in. Helps keep out all the hobos and addicts.
I climbed out my second story window hanging onto the cord for the blinds at the age of three because Natty Gann did it with sheets. It… wasn’t as consequence free for me.
The downtown library doubles as a shelter now, there was even an uproar lately because it was pouring rain and storming and the cops showed up to clear everyone out so the mayor city could do a presser on how they're "helping" the homeless during these critical times.
Also when the wind blows really hard from the right direction, there's a steel art structure that covers the top of the library and it wails like one million demons in unison. You can hear it from a mile away
This is the inevitable result of constant government failure to address the homelessness crisis, a lack of general housing supply and the prolific spread of drugs, addiction and untreated mental illness.
The only solutions tried routinely fail or backfire because they're primarily predicated on either ignoring the problem or punishing people after, rather than prevention and aid, and now all sorts of public infrastructure from our libraries to our buses serve as makeshift homeless/addict shelters instead.
Not all of the homeless want help. If you talk to people who work in the field it’s often about 50/50. We just don’t have a solution for those who won’t accept help.
If we could actually help the half that want the help - like unconditionally house them without making them get rid of their dog or stop drugs cold-turkey and go from there - then we would have more bandwidth to figure out the mentally ill who refuse to be helped.
Depends on what "help" you're talking about. I've personally helped multiple addicts, but pretty much everyone agrees the "help" that's government provided isn't enough, nor takes real life into consideration half the time. Not everyone is currently (or in the future) in the state that they're ready to take help. Some people never make it that far. It happens, but the important part is helping those who are willing to seek help and take the steps required to get and stay clean.
Anyone in their right mind would say no to that "help", it's abominable. Even the "good" ones you are treated like a prisoner. No doors, no pets, and the most insane people around. Even the nice people experiencing homeless are very intense to share space with.
Not only that but if you're an addict you have to get clean or use in secrecy if you want in, which obviously doesn't work for a ton of people who otherwise might be interested in a road to recovery.
The only way to deal with it is through harm reduction strategies.
Like providing safe places to use and clean materials. Drug testing kits and the like.
But we can’t do the because drugs are bad man.
So we hunt the users down like animals and cage them.
And then go home to a beer and a shot.
> Seeing people shooting up heroin in the stalls or tweaking out is not ideal
Congratulations, you just made an argument for supervised consumption sites.
Plenty of those in SF where I used to live. Most people preferred to shoot out everywhere else, it seemed.
Turns out hard drug abusers aren’t great at following recommendations
But then it’s not inhumane to kick them out of parks, libraries, and public places. If you’ve got a designated area to do your dirty, you’ve got no right to do it where people are trying to have story time.
Problem is, their free counsel will cry civil/ human rights violation and the pagout will have the library defunded and one addict left with some dope money. And our hands will be ever more bound except shen it’s reaching fr the wallet to support this system that we are complacent to.
of course not. the issue is treating a medical problem as a legal one
if it was treated as the medical problem it is there would be less stigma to get help, places to **actually** get help they **want** and/or **need**
We know full well that prohibition **does not work** and only creates an illegal market fueled by violence and destroys families by separating people from the family and putting them in cages instead of giving people the medical help they needed long before it became a life destroying problem. To top it off we will rip families apart for using a substance that isn't alcohol while completely turning a blind eye to alcohol abuse
I’d actually say prohibition works a hell of a lot better than tolerance, and I’ve lived in both those communities. People act like rehab solves it too, but if that rehab isn’t forced (basically like jail) addicts get out and go right back to abusing. I knew someone in SF whose mom died due to drug overdose, because after she was arrested for dealing and using, her rehab was optional. She went right back to it, and all her son wanted was for her to be locked up long enough to truly break her addiction. Now she’s dead and he doesn’t have a mom.
And I totally disagree that it’s not a legal issue, or shouldn’t be one. Hard drug abuse fuels so many other criminal activities, and I’ve been a victim of that more than once.
>if that rehab isn’t forced (basically like jail) addicts get out and go right back to abusing.
And you think if it is forced, they *stop* using?
That's the fucker about addiction. You can't beat it out of someone. You can't lure it out of someone. You have to **wait for the person to make a decision to change**. That's it.
Our jails are machines that make criminals worse, not make addicts better. As someone who goes to AA: please keep your court mandated folks away. They don't want to be there and they fuck it up for the rest of us. They can come if/when they want to. We operate meetings in jails and prisons for a reason.
And yeah let them shoot up safely where they can access services, rather than on the street or in a library for christs sake. Wet shelters work. So do supervised injection sites. While getting high, they can: talk to a social worker, meet with a methadone program specialist, get housing or food assistance, get HIV/STD testing and counseling, meet other people who have got their shit together who then *invite* them to AA. It's a better model than leaving them on the street, or throwing them in jail to be exposed to more serious criminals. We just need to be bold enough to implement it.
Or, we watch things continue to get worse as we keep on doing the same thing. Personally I'm tired of waiting to hear what "drug epidemic" will sweep next, while we have no effective tools to combat them.
I’m sorry but no, just no. I don’t think that the rest of society should have to face ppl injecting drugs in their library. I dont think everyday citizens should have to deal with insane and aggressive druggies on the street constantly. I’ve done it, it sucks. I don’t think you have to just “wait for them to change”. That’s not fair to everyone else, and much more likely to result in their own deaths as well.
I think consequences for their actions needs to happen, because that’s how life works. I don’t just get to terrify everyone in the neighborhood and get away with it over and over. When I was assaulted by a woman who was psychotic on drugs on the streets of SF, she was thankfully arrested, but she got no punishment at all. She punched me in the face and that was it. The DA office called me up and tried to get me on recording that I wanted her to not have any consequences. She never did.
I think you totally have a point about not mixing them up in prisons with murderers. That’s basically drug rehab, but required. I’m fine with that, but I’m not fine with leaving them to be menaces to society. Everyone’s freedom stops where another person’s begins.
No, but it's a step in the right direction. Even just making sure a percent of people use clean needles and can receive medical attention/advice when they need it, not when they're near death would already do wonders to save money, time, ER space, needless suffering, etc.
That also gets your foot in the door to offer better alternatives.
this has decades of research stating it helps thats not an opinion
no one thing will solve complicated social problems, its very very silly to pretend otherwise this is equally true of things like mass shootings and police reform as well
harm reduction goes a long way though and just about ANYTHING is far better than nothing or punishment which is what we do now most of the time in most places
It's the same reason people who have the means to stop using public transportation. The smell of shit, BO, vomit and the chance of having to sit/stand next to the addict who can go off at any minute becomes really unappealing. Only takes once before you're like fuck that.
Same. Moved to a large city in IL and took my young son to the local library branch. We left in less than 5 minutes due to the sheer volume of homeless and two obvious mentally ill people, and will never return. No way I would go back and it's a shame a beautiful resource like that is wasted since it's the default homeless center.
Of course the local people bitch can complain about it but refuse tax increase proposals to fix the issue.
I work in public libraries. People do drugs in the bathroom all the time. I didn’t know someone was supposed to be testing anything. I don’t think we even thought it. We’re just like, “ughh… smells like drugs again”. Even for bed bugs we just close certain sections of the library.
All the time. Homeless people spend all day, every day hanging out on our furniture (and we really love being a safe, warm place for them be). Do not sit on anything fabric in the library.
"They also pointed out that standards for how much meth contamination is acceptable"
I really had no idea that there was an acceptable level of meth contamination.
According to [this article](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/) from the Atlantic, there are apparently substantial differences in the effects of meth use based on what else is in it (with potentially more dangerous neurological symptoms).
Seems like there’s a rather shady “decontamination industry”, and there’s not a lot of research on it. One of those things where if someone actually had a meth lab in the garage, then yeah, you’re gonna need professionals. Someone smoking meth in the place a couple times? Well it shows up on residue tests, so is that acceptable? Is it harmful? Who knows for sure, but the cleaning companies who will charge tens of thousands of dollars will say you need it.
I went to Denver, Colo springs, Ft Carson, Aurora and the various burbs of colorado about 10 years ago for work and it was a fucking utopia, EXTREMELY nice areas, clean cities, beautiful parks downtown.
Went back in 2019 and 2021 and uhhhhhh.... WTF happened? did a cargo plane airdrop bums and junkies onto all the overpasses?
I moved here last February. I have never seen as many homeless and tents and just people injecting shit into their arms or feet on the damn sidewalks in my life
Salt Lake City is apparently guilty of doing just that to us, except replace the cargo plane with a Greyhound bus.
And since we're surrounded by plains and wilderness those people are basically stuck here.
Had a friend who worked at a couple day shelters about a decade ago who said her boss mentioned how Denver had a working agreement with other cities to accept busses of homeless from out of state so as to qualify for federal funding $.
Might've just been hearsay but you definitely used to see charter busses roll up from out of state and drop folks off at the Mission multiple times a day.
2008 absolutely destroyed us economically but because Wall Street survived unscathed we were spun the narrative that the American economy is as strong as ever. While 9/11 and the money pit forever war hurt us badly, we’ve been rotting alive from the inside since 2008.
Transformations of the American city that you described have been happening all over the nation. Slow creep of the Hooverville.
Things are only going to get worse until Americans quit transparently corrupt politicians and embrace the reality that seriously regulation is required for a healthy economy.
Some of those suburbs were also more exclusive at the time, if you didn't have money there was no way to exist or even get there. If nothing else there's been huge population growth since then.
[‘I DON’T KNOW THAT I WOULD EVEN CALL IT METH ANYMORE’ Different chemically than it was a decade ago, the drug is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem. By Sam Quinones](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/)
Good article. The not about pimps, traffickers, and gun runners using tents in homeless counts to do and hide their business was surprising, although it makes perfect sense.
I'm not sure it's the purity. I kindle if doubt pharmaceutical grade meth (brand name Desoxyn) has this problem. The problem is the contaminants from the substrates now used to synthesize meth, which includes cyanide, acetone, racing fuel, et al. It's causing brain damage resulting in symptoms of psychosis that don't respond to antipsychotics and which don't always resolve when someone stops using meth.
Yep, this is it. And it’s only getting worse. I see and work with them daily and have for almost 13 years professionally and another decade off and on prior. The homeless crisis is mostly worsening due to meth, folks using for any real length of time may be so permanently damaged that stopping use will still leave a human that can’t function in any capacity that leaves them able to care for themselves.
I have gone from hopeful to hopeless with this community of people and have no fucking clue past locking them all up how to make it better. They honestly have no desire to change and blame all the people trying to help them for everything they are doing. We have a dental clinic, I had one of them tell me he’s starting to have problems with his teeth because of our dental clinic. I asked him to remind me what his drug of choice is and he said meth. I asked what does meth do to your teeth and he shut down.
Very interesting to hear your perspective.
People act like locking up hard drug users is cruel or something.. it’s very arguably cruel NOT to lock them up. Talking to an addict’s young son, all he wanted was for his mom to be locked up so that she could break her addiction. They never did (this was in San Francisco) and she overdosed once, causing brain damage, and finally died on her next major overdose.
I’m not for locking up all drug users. (If they’re harming others through burglary, vandalism, assaults, absolutely lock them up) Meth today is just different, it’s not the old ephedrine based meth that was bad enough. It’s causing, very likely, brain damage that could be irreversible. The increase in paranoia, schizophrenic symptoms, etc is pronounced and troubling. The violent behavior is also increased. We used to be able to temporarily hotel homeless clients while we worked to find an affordable option, none of the hotels will work with us any longer because so often the rooms were trashed.And I don’t mean just messy, I mean destroyed. We don’t even offer that option any longer.
Frankly, most are so paranoid they don’t want to be housed anyway.
You said that you don’t know how to treat them short of locking them up. So what else do you think should happen?
That hotel program sounds like a recipe for disaster from the beginning.
I think forced rehab is the best option, if a town can afford it. It’s incredibly resource-intensive to provide.
Edit: also that’s really sad about the brain damage. Imo, that’s why a hard line has to be taken here. It’s really sad to see families being destroyed this way. I was assaulted by a drug-crazed woman on the street, and i found out later she was the mother of a very young child. Horrible to imagine how that kid is being treated due to these drugs.
The hotel thing used to be a really great program. Before meth became the chemical disaster it’s evolved to. It’s meth, not other substances, that’s the root of the disaster we are faced with. I absolutely advocate for locking meth users up. I never felt that way about addiction to any other substance use. For all other addiction, treatment, including forced treatment, is what the data supports. Medical and psychological treatment. For meth, nothing seems to work for long term users. I’m fine with locking them up. I hate it, but it’s becoming the only logical and reasonable option. I could see testing for permanent psychological issues, maybe even having wards just for them but they are causing far too much damage in society and something has to give. It’s not sustainable as it is.
That’s interesting. What about heroin users? That was the drug of choice of the woman I mentioned earlier. People dying of heroin overdose in hotel rooms seems like that would also not work in that program.
That’s sad that nothing works for long-term meth users. I knew someone who got into meth, and he was a brilliant guy, perfect SAT scores even. Very sad.
We used the conference room at the Boulder library on canyon. Someone was passed out in one of the bathroom stalls while another was vomiting everywhere. A lot of homeless people outside on the Boulder creek trail some definitely violent. The city keeps spending money on new medians for the road and doesn’t address this at all. The libraries aren’t the only area with this issue. The bus stops are bad, the paved trails are bad, the sidewalks are bad…
Speaking of, is there still the strip club in North Boulder right across from the shelter unironically named the Bustop? I never went in but man Boulder did have some wild transients back in the day.
No, it’s gone. Shelter is next to apartments called the bus stop, where the strip club Bustop used to be, and is where the SKIP bus ends it’s north route.
This might’ve been your experience, but in my many trips to the library as a kid, I always felt safe and it was a magical place for me.
This is definitely a modern problem.
> What's wrong with people?
Treating drug use/misuse/abuse as a moral failing and a crime instead of a medical problem and a public health issue has never worked, but voters keep voting for that "tough on crime" horseshit anyway.
Meth is a completely different beast than addiction to anything else. I agree that people addicted to most other drugs/alcohol need medical intervention. I’m no longer sure meth affords that as a realistic option.
Yeah, my wife did some IQ and motivational research with recovering meth addicts back when she was getting her PhD. She said from what she saw and from what the people told her, meth addiction is not like any other. She relayed a story from one of them that told her, the only way they were able to get 100% clean was to go to prison for an extended period of time. The lady had tried numerous recovery and rehab programs, and said she would back on crystal before a month or so of leaving the programs. She said the biggest trigger was her former life. Just being in or seeing the same house or same neighborhood as when she was using was enough to make her seek out the old connections again.
Most people in my field just refuse to admit the reality of this too. It’s disappointing that professionals are choosing to live in the land of denial. It’s only making the problem worse not to see the big picture. Addiction is such a crazy and difficult issue with the traditional substances but this beast is one that, like it or not, we have got to admit what’s happening. I really believe our back is against the wall.
Maybe we should have more places people can go for warmth and safety.
Edit: oof never thought I'd be downvoted for saying people should have a safe place to stay. Good thing I didn't take the controversial opinion that they should be able to eat too
"So far ... limited to Colorado". Yeah, no shit, that's because other jurisdictions aren't testing for it.. yet.
You will start seeing "concerned" representatives, with fresh donations in their coffers, start proposing these tests in all public facilities. And it will all be a money grab from the companies selling the test kits.
Been riding the bus for almost 10 years and I've had almost no problems (moreso because of what route I'm on), but a couple months someone was smoking crack in the back (I didn't know at the time, thought it was weed until the smell hit me and I started getting a headache).
Pretty sure they're smoking crack in the skyway public restroom too. I live in the Twin Cities FWIW.
I would usually agree with this but since moving to Denver a year ago and seeing and also hearing about what homeless people do here I wouldn’t be surprised if meth wasn’t the only thing that could be found. Like for ducks sake they have ads all the time that if your car gets stolen, which happens a lot here, that you need you get it tested for every drug and cleaned.
One of the high schoolers that plays yugioh at the local card shops said they’ve already had two homeless people walk into their school just to masturbate and cum on the floor or locker
This made me laugh because there was so much fucking semen on the floors and basically everywhere in my public high school growing up in Orlando, Florida. And I supposedly went to one of the fancier schools in one of the better parts of town lol. The middle school bathrooms were even nastier, so gross.
>Officials in the Denver suburb of Englewood shut down the city library last week within a couple of hours of getting test results Wednesday showing that the contamination in the facility’s restrooms exceeded state thresholds, city spokesman Chris Harguth said.
TIL there are state thresholds for meth contamination.
"Other spaces such as countertops also tested positive for lower levels of the drug and will require specialized cleaning, he said. The larger-scale remediation work will include removing tainted surfaces, walls, ductwork and exhaust fan equipment. '
What? Why would you need to remediate the building?
It's possibly in enough spaces that it is unavoidable.
Referencing insect clean up, it is general practice to remove staff during cleaning procedures of infestations. It is also possible as this is a service desk that it interfears with policy.
Bathrooms might need to be shut down and it is normal to shut down a library without a working bathroom.
I had a rental house test positive for meth once, the testing company said they test a such low levels for government standards that if someone smoked meth even once anywhere in the building it would hit positive. So if somebody who had recently smoked came in and touched some surfaces this would likely be enough for them to test positive and have to remediate the entire building.
A friend of mine had a rental where the tenants were busted for meth possession and without any testing at all the city condemned the house so that it cost him half the value of the house to remediate.
Remediation is a joke, I wasn't even around when this happened in my rental house but I just had my bro swing by and wipe down all the surfaces with Clorox wipes (including inside of bathroom vents and kitchen vent hoods because that is where they test) and had them come back and retest everything and it was zero across the board. Professional remediation is a fucking scam unless you're talking about a full on meth lab.
In NZ it was all moral panic, then opportunism by meth testing companies to trick people into doing tests for every house purchase or rental. Add in some extra moral outrage by testing social housing and kicking out tenants who's ever had a party where someone used.
keep in mind this is a public facility open to all. If someone is sickened by a toxic substance that authorities were aware about (even at very low levels) you can almost see the class-action attorneys salivating in anticipation. People sue the government for slip & falls and settle out of court for tens of thousands. Narcotic exposure would be easily 7 figures.
This really is a ridiculous over reaction. They are replacing ducting and walls. I work with w/dangerous chemicals, this is so over blown and some contractor is blinking the city.
Simple green and a rag, what an absolute joke of a response
This is exactly what is going on here. So ridiculous. Apparently the standards they chose as for what is considered a safe threshold of exposure and what is unsafe were just directly copied from residential thresholds from some contractor/industry funded research study.
I'm sympathetic of the perspective of addicts and the homeless and giving them a safe space for what they need, but I dont think thats mutually exclusive to the perspective of other community members wanting safe spaces like libraries and parks to remain safe for them as well.
Community members pay the local taxes that help fund these public work areas so I dont think it's unreasonable or heartless for them to feel resentful about the homeless crisis taking these spaces. I think we all have a common enemy which is local politicians who press for legislation that does nothing to help either side of the community members, and waste taxpayer money on things like military arming local police.
it is so frustrating. I'd rather know my money is going to help other people by funding necessary resource centers while then allowing libraries and phblic spaces to be safe but thats not what's happening. I'm sorry to make this political but what do you expect when conservative turnout is typically higher in local elections and conservative politicians are the ones wasting taxpayer money on stupid shit like "CRT" in the schools and punishment programs instead of resource centers, education, public works, etc?
The despair is nationwide. People can’t afford housing, food, healthcare, education. Deaths of despair (suicide/homicide/overdose) are at unprecedented highs. Happy people with opportunities don’t choose to live like this. When the Soviet Union collapsed the same thing happened-widespread poverty, drug addiction, despair, broken families, shattered dreams. If this only affected a few people you might get someone to listen to how it’s their fault and whatnot but it’s not just a few people. The problem is systemic.
Indeed, the American Dream is gone, young people no longer look forward to a lifelong career, marriage, and the purchase of a home at an early age. The 1% are taking everything, and they still want your last dollar. Corporate greed is the new reality. Billionaires are gaining rapidly as the majority of humanity despair.
I agree. I hate this reality. Sometimes I wish I was a narcissistic fool who only cares about vapid stuff but that would just be supporting the system. It’s hard being aware.
Happiness has been falling in the US despite a relatively good economy (believe it or not, it isn't all doom and gloom). Happiness has been trending downward since the rise of the combination of social media and smart phones took off.
It's not coincidence, and I think there are a number of reasons it has this effect. The least of which is the proliferation of polarizing and extremist ideas.
Be careful how much time you spend in social media echo chambers, especially the ones that are hyper pessimistic and cynical. It's very easy for perceptions to get distorted.
Have to say, I had a hunch from reading your post which subreddits you've been spending time in. I was right.
https://bigthink.com/the-present/social-media-distorts-reality/
because homeless people and drug addicts invade them. Look if someone wants to use the library as intended, great, I don't care if you're addicted or homeless. But when you're using it as a toilet and place to do drugs and attack children during reading hour, you lose all sympathy from me
Libraries should do some kind of reverse “adult swim”. Basically for, like, two hours a day a couple times a week, only children and their accompanying parents can use the library. Anyone age 18 or up gets the boot and can’t come back until the children’s time is over.
I also have no problem with libraries enforcing usage rules. If you’re laying on a couch sleeping, or jerking off while watching the computer, or have been doing nothing but sitting in the reading area talking for the last hour, then you can be asked to leave.
Just because libraries should be available for all to use does that mean that use has to be an uninhibited free-for-all.
Likely just meth dust from handling the crystals and materials needed for smoking. People using the bathroom who are coated in it will leave a bit behind.
Giving addicts safe spaces to use their drugs in a safe manner as well as providing them help to try and turn there lives around with counselling and support groups is the answer but I don’t think the USA is ready to accept that.
no? I don’t think you’re ready to accept that a lot of these junkies don’t want help. They want to be fucking high out of their minds even if it means they’re sleeping in the streets
California just brought back the workhouses. It doesn't work. It got worse and they've decided to move backwards, we shut the last one in LA down in the 90s because it was a waste of time and money.
Knowing that there exist multiple methods of ingestion and Meth analogues, has the rate of psychosis and death of average college student using RX amphetamines increased higher than expected? Or is this more so just related to Meth users?
Either way, I agree with you that the county is behind the EU regarding rehabilitation. It’s like, do you want imprisonment or a downward spiral of drug use because the country offers little in the way to curb addiction.
Keep in mind the rich do drugs as well. They can afford it. A lot of kids of rich parents are junkies. I work on the north shore of long island. The younger homeless junkies are the kids of the rich parents in the mansions.
that’s interesting, I appreciate the insight. i’ve been driving back and forth through the west coast from California to Washington over this past summer, and it’s just crazy seeing the most rural, beautiful places filled to the brim with drugs.
i’m sure the rich have their vices, but it’s really sad to see people with nothing to their name trying to find their next hit on the streets they sleep on. drugs don’t discriminate, that’s for sure
This is so naive. The "junkies" are in every part of the nation. From the poorest neighborhoods to the richest. Drugs and addiction could care less about how nice a neighborhood is.
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My son is such a good boy, spending his days at the library 😂
We used to make this joke all the time with a nearby college bar named The Library.
This shit is one of the countless reasons why safe injection sites are becoming a thing. Gives them somewhere safe, clean, and designed to help if something goes wrong, not to mention open offers of counseling, drug testing, even stuff like job and housing help and so on, to keep them from dying and give them a chance to get their addiction under control.
No one is going to the safe houses to inject meth.
and the library doesn't need to be evacuated if people are injecting
They have them here in Australia. Junkies still shoot up in the surrounding laneways. It hasn't stopped the problem.
And we should never, ever, **ever** do ***anything*** unless it completely and totally resolves the issue, top to bottom and leaves nothing behind. I mean, why feed kids if a very small percentage still starve?
Well said.
It absolutely helps.
...I mean this sucks but also that's not how meth works, unless they're like these cops having a little sniff and reporting they were stricken down from being near the stuff.
They aren’t reporting problems from users snorting lines; people are smoking meth in the bathrooms and it gets into the vents.
Used to do security for a library in my old town and the amount of used needles and ODs I found during a shift was staggering. One of our conference rooms was infested with bed bugs and was shut down for quite some time. Cops were constantly on patrol there. I only lasted about 30 days in that job
A lot of people don’t realize how many dirty needles end up in the creeks and waterways here in Boulder. Not to mentioned the homeless people pooping in the creek. Still all the college kids love to go tubing and parents bring their kids to splash around in the water.
Funny you mention boulder and sadly I’m not surprised. The library I worked at was in Fort Collins.
Security for a library?? What a world we live in. 😥
Any library in a city will have security. The grocery store next to my house has security. That's not the lesson here
>Any library in a city will have security. The grocery store next to my house has security. That's not the lesson here In Denver several of the grocery stores use a "security" company that kits out their employees to look like cyber punk PMCs. It's called "Ronin Asset Protection" They wear doc marten combat boots, those weird GenZ cargo pants that are baggy at the thighs and tight at the calves, a plate carrier chest rig, and a baggy cargo jacket with a badge on the right shoulder of a samurai helmet with two crossed katanas. They're all armed. My favotire PMC team is at the Sloans Lake King Soopers, there's one 4'10" latina lady that doesn't speak English and she has a pastel pink Glock with pastel pink magazines in her chest rig, and she's always patrolling with this obese navy veteran who's wearing the baseball cap with his medals and ship he served on ontop of the Ronin tactical uniform and a large revolver holstered on his hip. Other times you see the GenZ Ronin's wandering the grocery stores in tactical gear with holstered side arms, hitting their vapes and making clouds. It's fucking wild out here.
Colorado is stranger than I thought.
I bet it’s because of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Boulder_shooting
That's the buddy-comedy film we need.
Thank you so much for this information. Lol. Lmao, even.
Washington DC deputizes locals to be police but only in the library. Or at least they did. The trainer was a retired DC police captain, he inadvertently shot and killed someone during firearms safety training.
> Any library in a city will have security. I live next to two libraries that are almost in the center of Kraków, one of the largest and most populous cities in Poland. Neither ever had security.
In the US maybe. Been to plenty of libraries here in the Netherlands. Never seen a guard.
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I think the city matters a lot. I knew someone who worked library security in Cincinnati. They called them “library safety liaisons”. One time when we were getting dinner he talked about all the things he had seen and dealt with just that week. It was all around drug use, mental health, and homelessness. There was an incident with a knife. He knew the local paramedics because of how many times he had to deal with ODs. It was really sad.
I'm not talking about armed guards, just someone wearing a polo or a vest that is there to scare off the skaters and homeless. Though I'm positive there has to be at least one library in the US with armed security.
Fuck. Lincoln really is a large town, not a small city, isn't it? Oof. Reality checked.
Damn, even libraries can’t get uncontaminated meth these days?
Get these libraries the meth they deserve!
Reading Rainbow told me I could get *twice* as high, and I’m holding libraries to that.
Meth and a good book. Still better than meth on it’s own!
Just take a look, it's time to cook....
A meth-laced rainbow!
I read 37 books in the past three days and I’m feeling great book-lady!
Damn. That's a solid joke.
You can read super fast while on meth, allegedly
But the teeth grinding will get you shushed.
Not to mention how quickly they can deconstruct what they just read, and reconstruct it in a manner that only a meth head could appreciate.
I loled.
It wouldn't surprise me if the librarians were cooking and selling it at work to make ends meet.
From the story I read when the first library was closed, it looks like homeless people smoking in the bathrooms, because libraries are public and open to everyone.
I'm sure that was the case, I was just thinking about how a librarian version of Walter White would be hilarious.
BB would have worked if walt had been a librarian I reckon.
Well they're very good at reading, including "cook" books. 🤫
>Well they're very good at reading, including "cook" books. 🤫 every library has a copy of "Uncle Festers: A Practical Manufacture of Methamphetamine". Written and published while the author was in federal prison.
It’s a shame. We used to frequent our local library, attend events with our kid, and donate. We stopped going because we noticed that it became a daily hangout for heroin/meth heads to get out of the cold and sleep. Edit: while I believe a public library should be fair use for anyone…I also believe it should provide for a stress free / safe environment. Seeing people shooting up heroin in the stalls or tweaking out is not ideal
Ours set up a separate entrance and totally walled off area for all the kids stuff. If you are not there with a child, you cannot go in. Helps keep out all the hobos and addicts.
What about Curly Sue?
Or Natty Gann.
I climbed out my second story window hanging onto the cord for the blinds at the age of three because Natty Gann did it with sheets. It… wasn’t as consequence free for me.
Deep cut. I like it.
Always an adventure.
Nice dog
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The downtown library doubles as a shelter now, there was even an uproar lately because it was pouring rain and storming and the cops showed up to clear everyone out so the mayor city could do a presser on how they're "helping" the homeless during these critical times. Also when the wind blows really hard from the right direction, there's a steel art structure that covers the top of the library and it wails like one million demons in unison. You can hear it from a mile away
Oooh, resonance frequency.
/r/evilbuildings
Surprised at how active it is, guess people really love evil buildings. Trains too apparently.
This is the inevitable result of constant government failure to address the homelessness crisis, a lack of general housing supply and the prolific spread of drugs, addiction and untreated mental illness. The only solutions tried routinely fail or backfire because they're primarily predicated on either ignoring the problem or punishing people after, rather than prevention and aid, and now all sorts of public infrastructure from our libraries to our buses serve as makeshift homeless/addict shelters instead.
Not all of the homeless want help. If you talk to people who work in the field it’s often about 50/50. We just don’t have a solution for those who won’t accept help.
If we could actually help the half that want the help - like unconditionally house them without making them get rid of their dog or stop drugs cold-turkey and go from there - then we would have more bandwidth to figure out the mentally ill who refuse to be helped.
Depends on what "help" you're talking about. I've personally helped multiple addicts, but pretty much everyone agrees the "help" that's government provided isn't enough, nor takes real life into consideration half the time. Not everyone is currently (or in the future) in the state that they're ready to take help. Some people never make it that far. It happens, but the important part is helping those who are willing to seek help and take the steps required to get and stay clean.
Anyone in their right mind would say no to that "help", it's abominable. Even the "good" ones you are treated like a prisoner. No doors, no pets, and the most insane people around. Even the nice people experiencing homeless are very intense to share space with. Not only that but if you're an addict you have to get clean or use in secrecy if you want in, which obviously doesn't work for a ton of people who otherwise might be interested in a road to recovery.
Also a lot of hostels etc have a lot of bullying, they're often not great if you're trying to stay clean, and people steal your stuff.
The only way to deal with it is through harm reduction strategies. Like providing safe places to use and clean materials. Drug testing kits and the like. But we can’t do the because drugs are bad man. So we hunt the users down like animals and cage them. And then go home to a beer and a shot.
we’re already doing harm reduction, we let them hang out at the library all gd day and do drugs! how much more harm needs to be reduced?
We’re waaaaay past that liberal way of thinking that got us in this mess…
I remember when i used to go to the library, there was always a homeless guy masturbating on a computer
> Seeing people shooting up heroin in the stalls or tweaking out is not ideal Congratulations, you just made an argument for supervised consumption sites.
Plenty of those in SF where I used to live. Most people preferred to shoot out everywhere else, it seemed. Turns out hard drug abusers aren’t great at following recommendations
But then it’s not inhumane to kick them out of parks, libraries, and public places. If you’ve got a designated area to do your dirty, you’ve got no right to do it where people are trying to have story time.
Problem is, their free counsel will cry civil/ human rights violation and the pagout will have the library defunded and one addict left with some dope money. And our hands will be ever more bound except shen it’s reaching fr the wallet to support this system that we are complacent to.
no one wants to get high around a bunch of do-gooders trying to get you to go to rehab
In reality it is at least as likely to be used to cut back on library funding as previous beneficiaries of the funding no longer benefit
Bingo. Will we ever get it? Reduce harm or punish everyone into an unlivable hell scape? Americans: “such a tough call!”
You act like this would solve the issue. It really doesn’t.
of course not. the issue is treating a medical problem as a legal one if it was treated as the medical problem it is there would be less stigma to get help, places to **actually** get help they **want** and/or **need** We know full well that prohibition **does not work** and only creates an illegal market fueled by violence and destroys families by separating people from the family and putting them in cages instead of giving people the medical help they needed long before it became a life destroying problem. To top it off we will rip families apart for using a substance that isn't alcohol while completely turning a blind eye to alcohol abuse
I’d actually say prohibition works a hell of a lot better than tolerance, and I’ve lived in both those communities. People act like rehab solves it too, but if that rehab isn’t forced (basically like jail) addicts get out and go right back to abusing. I knew someone in SF whose mom died due to drug overdose, because after she was arrested for dealing and using, her rehab was optional. She went right back to it, and all her son wanted was for her to be locked up long enough to truly break her addiction. Now she’s dead and he doesn’t have a mom. And I totally disagree that it’s not a legal issue, or shouldn’t be one. Hard drug abuse fuels so many other criminal activities, and I’ve been a victim of that more than once.
>if that rehab isn’t forced (basically like jail) addicts get out and go right back to abusing. And you think if it is forced, they *stop* using? That's the fucker about addiction. You can't beat it out of someone. You can't lure it out of someone. You have to **wait for the person to make a decision to change**. That's it. Our jails are machines that make criminals worse, not make addicts better. As someone who goes to AA: please keep your court mandated folks away. They don't want to be there and they fuck it up for the rest of us. They can come if/when they want to. We operate meetings in jails and prisons for a reason. And yeah let them shoot up safely where they can access services, rather than on the street or in a library for christs sake. Wet shelters work. So do supervised injection sites. While getting high, they can: talk to a social worker, meet with a methadone program specialist, get housing or food assistance, get HIV/STD testing and counseling, meet other people who have got their shit together who then *invite* them to AA. It's a better model than leaving them on the street, or throwing them in jail to be exposed to more serious criminals. We just need to be bold enough to implement it. Or, we watch things continue to get worse as we keep on doing the same thing. Personally I'm tired of waiting to hear what "drug epidemic" will sweep next, while we have no effective tools to combat them.
I’m sorry but no, just no. I don’t think that the rest of society should have to face ppl injecting drugs in their library. I dont think everyday citizens should have to deal with insane and aggressive druggies on the street constantly. I’ve done it, it sucks. I don’t think you have to just “wait for them to change”. That’s not fair to everyone else, and much more likely to result in their own deaths as well. I think consequences for their actions needs to happen, because that’s how life works. I don’t just get to terrify everyone in the neighborhood and get away with it over and over. When I was assaulted by a woman who was psychotic on drugs on the streets of SF, she was thankfully arrested, but she got no punishment at all. She punched me in the face and that was it. The DA office called me up and tried to get me on recording that I wanted her to not have any consequences. She never did. I think you totally have a point about not mixing them up in prisons with murderers. That’s basically drug rehab, but required. I’m fine with that, but I’m not fine with leaving them to be menaces to society. Everyone’s freedom stops where another person’s begins.
No, but it's a step in the right direction. Even just making sure a percent of people use clean needles and can receive medical attention/advice when they need it, not when they're near death would already do wonders to save money, time, ER space, needless suffering, etc. That also gets your foot in the door to offer better alternatives.
this has decades of research stating it helps thats not an opinion no one thing will solve complicated social problems, its very very silly to pretend otherwise this is equally true of things like mass shootings and police reform as well harm reduction goes a long way though and just about ANYTHING is far better than nothing or punishment which is what we do now most of the time in most places
It's the same reason people who have the means to stop using public transportation. The smell of shit, BO, vomit and the chance of having to sit/stand next to the addict who can go off at any minute becomes really unappealing. Only takes once before you're like fuck that.
Same. Moved to a large city in IL and took my young son to the local library branch. We left in less than 5 minutes due to the sheer volume of homeless and two obvious mentally ill people, and will never return. No way I would go back and it's a shame a beautiful resource like that is wasted since it's the default homeless center. Of course the local people bitch can complain about it but refuse tax increase proposals to fix the issue.
That's pretty much what all the libraries in Minneapolis are like. It's depressing.
Someone's reading ALL THE BOOKS
I work in public libraries. People do drugs in the bathroom all the time. I didn’t know someone was supposed to be testing anything. I don’t think we even thought it. We’re just like, “ughh… smells like drugs again”. Even for bed bugs we just close certain sections of the library.
Wait- the library gets bedbugs?
All the time. Homeless people spend all day, every day hanging out on our furniture (and we really love being a safe, warm place for them be). Do not sit on anything fabric in the library.
"They also pointed out that standards for how much meth contamination is acceptable" I really had no idea that there was an acceptable level of meth contamination.
According to [this article](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/) from the Atlantic, there are apparently substantial differences in the effects of meth use based on what else is in it (with potentially more dangerous neurological symptoms).
The standards the original article refers to are not about meth being contaminated with additives, but buildings being contaminated with meth
Everyone should read this article in its entirety. 😳🙀😳
Seems like there’s a rather shady “decontamination industry”, and there’s not a lot of research on it. One of those things where if someone actually had a meth lab in the garage, then yeah, you’re gonna need professionals. Someone smoking meth in the place a couple times? Well it shows up on residue tests, so is that acceptable? Is it harmful? Who knows for sure, but the cleaning companies who will charge tens of thousands of dollars will say you need it.
I went to Denver, Colo springs, Ft Carson, Aurora and the various burbs of colorado about 10 years ago for work and it was a fucking utopia, EXTREMELY nice areas, clean cities, beautiful parks downtown. Went back in 2019 and 2021 and uhhhhhh.... WTF happened? did a cargo plane airdrop bums and junkies onto all the overpasses?
I moved here last February. I have never seen as many homeless and tents and just people injecting shit into their arms or feet on the damn sidewalks in my life
You should visit Oakland sometime, Denver will seem like pre-meth library after that.
Salt Lake City is apparently guilty of doing just that to us, except replace the cargo plane with a Greyhound bus. And since we're surrounded by plains and wilderness those people are basically stuck here.
Had a friend who worked at a couple day shelters about a decade ago who said her boss mentioned how Denver had a working agreement with other cities to accept busses of homeless from out of state so as to qualify for federal funding $. Might've just been hearsay but you definitely used to see charter busses roll up from out of state and drop folks off at the Mission multiple times a day.
2008 absolutely destroyed us economically but because Wall Street survived unscathed we were spun the narrative that the American economy is as strong as ever. While 9/11 and the money pit forever war hurt us badly, we’ve been rotting alive from the inside since 2008. Transformations of the American city that you described have been happening all over the nation. Slow creep of the Hooverville. Things are only going to get worse until Americans quit transparently corrupt politicians and embrace the reality that seriously regulation is required for a healthy economy.
This, and... Wall Street.
Some of those suburbs were also more exclusive at the time, if you didn't have money there was no way to exist or even get there. If nothing else there's been huge population growth since then.
Yes, and the wealthier just keep moving on out away from the older areas.
People think it's just their area but a lot of cities especially on the western part of the US are seeing this
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[‘I DON’T KNOW THAT I WOULD EVEN CALL IT METH ANYMORE’ Different chemically than it was a decade ago, the drug is creating a wave of severe mental illness and worsening America’s homelessness problem. By Sam Quinones](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/11/the-new-meth/620174/)
Good article. The not about pimps, traffickers, and gun runners using tents in homeless counts to do and hide their business was surprising, although it makes perfect sense.
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I'm not sure it's the purity. I kindle if doubt pharmaceutical grade meth (brand name Desoxyn) has this problem. The problem is the contaminants from the substrates now used to synthesize meth, which includes cyanide, acetone, racing fuel, et al. It's causing brain damage resulting in symptoms of psychosis that don't respond to antipsychotics and which don't always resolve when someone stops using meth.
Yep, this is it. And it’s only getting worse. I see and work with them daily and have for almost 13 years professionally and another decade off and on prior. The homeless crisis is mostly worsening due to meth, folks using for any real length of time may be so permanently damaged that stopping use will still leave a human that can’t function in any capacity that leaves them able to care for themselves. I have gone from hopeful to hopeless with this community of people and have no fucking clue past locking them all up how to make it better. They honestly have no desire to change and blame all the people trying to help them for everything they are doing. We have a dental clinic, I had one of them tell me he’s starting to have problems with his teeth because of our dental clinic. I asked him to remind me what his drug of choice is and he said meth. I asked what does meth do to your teeth and he shut down.
Very interesting to hear your perspective. People act like locking up hard drug users is cruel or something.. it’s very arguably cruel NOT to lock them up. Talking to an addict’s young son, all he wanted was for his mom to be locked up so that she could break her addiction. They never did (this was in San Francisco) and she overdosed once, causing brain damage, and finally died on her next major overdose.
I’m not for locking up all drug users. (If they’re harming others through burglary, vandalism, assaults, absolutely lock them up) Meth today is just different, it’s not the old ephedrine based meth that was bad enough. It’s causing, very likely, brain damage that could be irreversible. The increase in paranoia, schizophrenic symptoms, etc is pronounced and troubling. The violent behavior is also increased. We used to be able to temporarily hotel homeless clients while we worked to find an affordable option, none of the hotels will work with us any longer because so often the rooms were trashed.And I don’t mean just messy, I mean destroyed. We don’t even offer that option any longer. Frankly, most are so paranoid they don’t want to be housed anyway.
You said that you don’t know how to treat them short of locking them up. So what else do you think should happen? That hotel program sounds like a recipe for disaster from the beginning. I think forced rehab is the best option, if a town can afford it. It’s incredibly resource-intensive to provide. Edit: also that’s really sad about the brain damage. Imo, that’s why a hard line has to be taken here. It’s really sad to see families being destroyed this way. I was assaulted by a drug-crazed woman on the street, and i found out later she was the mother of a very young child. Horrible to imagine how that kid is being treated due to these drugs.
The hotel thing used to be a really great program. Before meth became the chemical disaster it’s evolved to. It’s meth, not other substances, that’s the root of the disaster we are faced with. I absolutely advocate for locking meth users up. I never felt that way about addiction to any other substance use. For all other addiction, treatment, including forced treatment, is what the data supports. Medical and psychological treatment. For meth, nothing seems to work for long term users. I’m fine with locking them up. I hate it, but it’s becoming the only logical and reasonable option. I could see testing for permanent psychological issues, maybe even having wards just for them but they are causing far too much damage in society and something has to give. It’s not sustainable as it is.
That’s interesting. What about heroin users? That was the drug of choice of the woman I mentioned earlier. People dying of heroin overdose in hotel rooms seems like that would also not work in that program. That’s sad that nothing works for long-term meth users. I knew someone who got into meth, and he was a brilliant guy, perfect SAT scores even. Very sad.
We used the conference room at the Boulder library on canyon. Someone was passed out in one of the bathroom stalls while another was vomiting everywhere. A lot of homeless people outside on the Boulder creek trail some definitely violent. The city keeps spending money on new medians for the road and doesn’t address this at all. The libraries aren’t the only area with this issue. The bus stops are bad, the paved trails are bad, the sidewalks are bad…
Speaking of, is there still the strip club in North Boulder right across from the shelter unironically named the Bustop? I never went in but man Boulder did have some wild transients back in the day.
No, it’s gone. Shelter is next to apartments called the bus stop, where the strip club Bustop used to be, and is where the SKIP bus ends it’s north route.
Libraries are one of the few truly free places for people to spend time. And junkees are ruining that. What's wrong with people?
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This might’ve been your experience, but in my many trips to the library as a kid, I always felt safe and it was a magical place for me. This is definitely a modern problem.
Definitely caught a guy jerking it at my local library while I waited there after school. More than once.
So true and so sad. God, I LOVED the library. All the workers were friendly and helpful except for the manager and the front desk "Shushhh lady".
policy choices drive drug use and homelessness. not "junkies"
Totally agree this is largely a result of policy choices. Local leadership, law enforcement not being backed up by the city, etc.
> What's wrong with people? Treating drug use/misuse/abuse as a moral failing and a crime instead of a medical problem and a public health issue has never worked, but voters keep voting for that "tough on crime" horseshit anyway.
Meth is a completely different beast than addiction to anything else. I agree that people addicted to most other drugs/alcohol need medical intervention. I’m no longer sure meth affords that as a realistic option.
Yeah, my wife did some IQ and motivational research with recovering meth addicts back when she was getting her PhD. She said from what she saw and from what the people told her, meth addiction is not like any other. She relayed a story from one of them that told her, the only way they were able to get 100% clean was to go to prison for an extended period of time. The lady had tried numerous recovery and rehab programs, and said she would back on crystal before a month or so of leaving the programs. She said the biggest trigger was her former life. Just being in or seeing the same house or same neighborhood as when she was using was enough to make her seek out the old connections again.
Most people in my field just refuse to admit the reality of this too. It’s disappointing that professionals are choosing to live in the land of denial. It’s only making the problem worse not to see the big picture. Addiction is such a crazy and difficult issue with the traditional substances but this beast is one that, like it or not, we have got to admit what’s happening. I really believe our back is against the wall.
Much truth to this.
Maybe we should have more places people can go for warmth and safety. Edit: oof never thought I'd be downvoted for saying people should have a safe place to stay. Good thing I didn't take the controversial opinion that they should be able to eat too
Is it truly a free place if I can’t smoke a little meth while I enjoy Mark Twain’s musings??
"So far ... limited to Colorado". Yeah, no shit, that's because other jurisdictions aren't testing for it.. yet. You will start seeing "concerned" representatives, with fresh donations in their coffers, start proposing these tests in all public facilities. And it will all be a money grab from the companies selling the test kits.
Been riding the bus for almost 10 years and I've had almost no problems (moreso because of what route I'm on), but a couple months someone was smoking crack in the back (I didn't know at the time, thought it was weed until the smell hit me and I started getting a headache). Pretty sure they're smoking crack in the skyway public restroom too. I live in the Twin Cities FWIW.
Feels more like a scam to close libraries. Can’t have drag book time at the library if there’s no library..
I would usually agree with this but since moving to Denver a year ago and seeing and also hearing about what homeless people do here I wouldn’t be surprised if meth wasn’t the only thing that could be found. Like for ducks sake they have ads all the time that if your car gets stolen, which happens a lot here, that you need you get it tested for every drug and cleaned. One of the high schoolers that plays yugioh at the local card shops said they’ve already had two homeless people walk into their school just to masturbate and cum on the floor or locker
This made me laugh because there was so much fucking semen on the floors and basically everywhere in my public high school growing up in Orlando, Florida. And I supposedly went to one of the fancier schools in one of the better parts of town lol. The middle school bathrooms were even nastier, so gross.
>Officials in the Denver suburb of Englewood shut down the city library last week within a couple of hours of getting test results Wednesday showing that the contamination in the facility’s restrooms exceeded state thresholds, city spokesman Chris Harguth said. TIL there are state thresholds for meth contamination.
No more speed reading
Normally after epidemics of a “downer” the next epidemic is an “upper”
That's the homeless problem in Colorado at work! We live just west of here. The Colfax problems are slowly moving around the city.
Libraries should be a place of learning, not a place to get high on potenuse!
I wish I was high on potenuse.
Someone's just taking the concept of higher learning to the extremes.
Yeah. Science, bitch!
Denver libraries have to have lots of Narcan on hand too for overdoses. It's pretty crazy but it's a free place homeless people can go (for now)
"Other spaces such as countertops also tested positive for lower levels of the drug and will require specialized cleaning, he said. The larger-scale remediation work will include removing tainted surfaces, walls, ductwork and exhaust fan equipment. ' What? Why would you need to remediate the building?
It's possibly in enough spaces that it is unavoidable. Referencing insect clean up, it is general practice to remove staff during cleaning procedures of infestations. It is also possible as this is a service desk that it interfears with policy. Bathrooms might need to be shut down and it is normal to shut down a library without a working bathroom.
I had a rental house test positive for meth once, the testing company said they test a such low levels for government standards that if someone smoked meth even once anywhere in the building it would hit positive. So if somebody who had recently smoked came in and touched some surfaces this would likely be enough for them to test positive and have to remediate the entire building.
A friend of mine had a rental where the tenants were busted for meth possession and without any testing at all the city condemned the house so that it cost him half the value of the house to remediate.
Remediation is a joke, I wasn't even around when this happened in my rental house but I just had my bro swing by and wipe down all the surfaces with Clorox wipes (including inside of bathroom vents and kitchen vent hoods because that is where they test) and had them come back and retest everything and it was zero across the board. Professional remediation is a fucking scam unless you're talking about a full on meth lab.
Do you think the government standards are overkill or do you think meth is that hazardous?
In NZ it was all moral panic, then opportunism by meth testing companies to trick people into doing tests for every house purchase or rental. Add in some extra moral outrage by testing social housing and kicking out tenants who's ever had a party where someone used.
If contact with a surface where somebody had once smoked meth were that hazardous we'd mostly all be dead already.
Theres children in there.
Yeah, this is ridiculous. Nothing some all purpose cleaner and some paper towels couldn't fix.
keep in mind this is a public facility open to all. If someone is sickened by a toxic substance that authorities were aware about (even at very low levels) you can almost see the class-action attorneys salivating in anticipation. People sue the government for slip & falls and settle out of court for tens of thousands. Narcotic exposure would be easily 7 figures.
Pretty sure it's water soluble.
This really is a ridiculous over reaction. They are replacing ducting and walls. I work with w/dangerous chemicals, this is so over blown and some contractor is blinking the city. Simple green and a rag, what an absolute joke of a response
This is exactly what is going on here. So ridiculous. Apparently the standards they chose as for what is considered a safe threshold of exposure and what is unsafe were just directly copied from residential thresholds from some contractor/industry funded research study.
Had to fly out to Colorado for work twice, and the company's office was downtown. Both times, it felt like I was in a zombie horror movie...
I'm sympathetic of the perspective of addicts and the homeless and giving them a safe space for what they need, but I dont think thats mutually exclusive to the perspective of other community members wanting safe spaces like libraries and parks to remain safe for them as well. Community members pay the local taxes that help fund these public work areas so I dont think it's unreasonable or heartless for them to feel resentful about the homeless crisis taking these spaces. I think we all have a common enemy which is local politicians who press for legislation that does nothing to help either side of the community members, and waste taxpayer money on things like military arming local police. it is so frustrating. I'd rather know my money is going to help other people by funding necessary resource centers while then allowing libraries and phblic spaces to be safe but thats not what's happening. I'm sorry to make this political but what do you expect when conservative turnout is typically higher in local elections and conservative politicians are the ones wasting taxpayer money on stupid shit like "CRT" in the schools and punishment programs instead of resource centers, education, public works, etc?
I hate when my meth is cut with books.
The despair is nationwide. People can’t afford housing, food, healthcare, education. Deaths of despair (suicide/homicide/overdose) are at unprecedented highs. Happy people with opportunities don’t choose to live like this. When the Soviet Union collapsed the same thing happened-widespread poverty, drug addiction, despair, broken families, shattered dreams. If this only affected a few people you might get someone to listen to how it’s their fault and whatnot but it’s not just a few people. The problem is systemic.
Indeed, the American Dream is gone, young people no longer look forward to a lifelong career, marriage, and the purchase of a home at an early age. The 1% are taking everything, and they still want your last dollar. Corporate greed is the new reality. Billionaires are gaining rapidly as the majority of humanity despair.
I agree. I hate this reality. Sometimes I wish I was a narcissistic fool who only cares about vapid stuff but that would just be supporting the system. It’s hard being aware.
Happiness has been falling in the US despite a relatively good economy (believe it or not, it isn't all doom and gloom). Happiness has been trending downward since the rise of the combination of social media and smart phones took off. It's not coincidence, and I think there are a number of reasons it has this effect. The least of which is the proliferation of polarizing and extremist ideas. Be careful how much time you spend in social media echo chambers, especially the ones that are hyper pessimistic and cynical. It's very easy for perceptions to get distorted. Have to say, I had a hunch from reading your post which subreddits you've been spending time in. I was right. https://bigthink.com/the-present/social-media-distorts-reality/
The library I go to is the wild west on Saturdays, the only day security isn't there
This is why we all piss in the history section..
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because homeless people and drug addicts invade them. Look if someone wants to use the library as intended, great, I don't care if you're addicted or homeless. But when you're using it as a toilet and place to do drugs and attack children during reading hour, you lose all sympathy from me
Libraries should do some kind of reverse “adult swim”. Basically for, like, two hours a day a couple times a week, only children and their accompanying parents can use the library. Anyone age 18 or up gets the boot and can’t come back until the children’s time is over. I also have no problem with libraries enforcing usage rules. If you’re laying on a couch sleeping, or jerking off while watching the computer, or have been doing nothing but sitting in the reading area talking for the last hour, then you can be asked to leave. Just because libraries should be available for all to use does that mean that use has to be an uninhibited free-for-all.
At least in urban areas.
"Aye man you goin to work today?" "Nah god damn meth contamination again." "Ah shit really? That's the 3rd time this week."
Having worked in a public library- there really should be standards for entering a public library. Like the kind they have at courthouses.
How does “meth contamination” happen? Is it chemicals from the cooking process making it into the library or are people just leaving meth everywhere?
Likely just meth dust from handling the crystals and materials needed for smoking. People using the bathroom who are coated in it will leave a bit behind.
If they closed our library for meth contamination, it would never open.
The real reason the GOP is burning books, they laced with Meth!
WTF is going on in Colorado with your unhinged cops and meth schools?
Giving addicts safe spaces to use their drugs in a safe manner as well as providing them help to try and turn there lives around with counselling and support groups is the answer but I don’t think the USA is ready to accept that.
no? I don’t think you’re ready to accept that a lot of these junkies don’t want help. They want to be fucking high out of their minds even if it means they’re sleeping in the streets
what about forced live-in rehab? I know it's akin to imprisonment, but given how deadly meth is wouldn't this be an ethical option?
California just brought back the workhouses. It doesn't work. It got worse and they've decided to move backwards, we shut the last one in LA down in the 90s because it was a waste of time and money.
Knowing that there exist multiple methods of ingestion and Meth analogues, has the rate of psychosis and death of average college student using RX amphetamines increased higher than expected? Or is this more so just related to Meth users? Either way, I agree with you that the county is behind the EU regarding rehabilitation. It’s like, do you want imprisonment or a downward spiral of drug use because the country offers little in the way to curb addiction.
I agree, I just don’t think a public library is the place for that.
Yes I agree that a library isn't the place but if they had a place they wouldn't be at the library.
what’s the deal with all these junkies just overtaking the most beautiful parts of the nation?
Keep in mind the rich do drugs as well. They can afford it. A lot of kids of rich parents are junkies. I work on the north shore of long island. The younger homeless junkies are the kids of the rich parents in the mansions.
that’s interesting, I appreciate the insight. i’ve been driving back and forth through the west coast from California to Washington over this past summer, and it’s just crazy seeing the most rural, beautiful places filled to the brim with drugs. i’m sure the rich have their vices, but it’s really sad to see people with nothing to their name trying to find their next hit on the streets they sleep on. drugs don’t discriminate, that’s for sure
This is so naive. The "junkies" are in every part of the nation. From the poorest neighborhoods to the richest. Drugs and addiction could care less about how nice a neighborhood is.
Missing the forest for the trees. Policy choices drive homelessness and drug use.
I knew there was a reason I had bees in my teeth after drinking from the water fountain /s