Lewiston residents have gathered enough signatures to put a referendum question on the ballot to impose stricter rules on the city’s syringe service programs after former city councilor and current Independent state Senate candidate Eryn “Ryn” Soule was stuck with a discarded needle in April.
“Shall the Syringe Service Program ordinance be amended to mandate a strict 1:1 needle exchange with a 20-syringe daily limit per person, require each provider to operate from a fixed location, and prohibit all mobile exchange units,” says the proposed referendum language.
After she was stuck with a needle while taking out the trash at a Lewiston property, Soule and her husband, Marcel Leclair, decided to take action and began collecting signatures to put a referendum on the ballot.
On Tuesday, they announced the success of their initiative and showed that they had gathered 966 signatures verified by the city clerk, more than the 941 required to place the referendum on the ballot.
Currently, syringe service providers can hand out 100 syringes per encounter with a drug user, a policy that leads to rapidly increasing numbers of needles in the city. Under the proposed referendum, the providers would only be permitted to hand out a syringe when a drug user turns one in, with a 20-syringe per-person daily maximum.
The proposal would also prohibit mobile units from distributing syringes and require the providers to operate out of a fixed location, though current ordinances already prohibit mobile providers.
The proposed referendum will now go to the city’s attorneys for review, and will then move on to the City Council, which can decide either to enact the proposal or send it to voters.
The official language that will appear on the ballot, assuming the council does not simply enact the policy, has not yet been determined.
Lewiston has a distressing track record with syringe service providers. Last year, a provider, the Church of Safe Injection, was shut down, and its building was condemned after several thousand needles and human feces were found scattered across its basement floor.
“This is the most extreme case of needle negligence that I’ve seen in the city so far,” said building inspector Travis Tardif, speaking to WMTW. “I’ve seen the unsanitary conditions and the squatters, but nothing like that with the needles.”
These people are too stupid to realize what the consequences of their actions might be until they’re the ones getting “stuck”.
How about at the junkies who show up to exchange needles? Problem solved.
*arrest
With so many needles being passed out my question is where are they getting the drugs to put in the needles?
Are they getting there free drugs supplied with the needles too.
What a ridiculous state this is becoming to live in.
The needle givers and the junkies should all be locked up. The junkies can dry out & the needle givers can think about how they are pushers of drugs.
Problem solved
20 needles per day?
Lewiston is telling us that the junkies
need to shoot up 20 TIMES A DAY?
Really?
I realize that they are addicted, and I realize
that they are all someone’s children, but they
are being enabled by the city to continue
killing themselves…slowly…
Shut it all down.
Make them dry out….
If they die in the process, they are out of their misery.
We don’t let animals suffer, do we?
Give them needles, money for drugs, narcan to revive them rinse and repeat. Follow the money.
The needle pushers always seem to win, don’t they?
Auburn citizens were pretty clear we didn’t want this BS here. Yet city officials authorized needle exchanges anyway.
Can we just prosecute illegal drug use again, lock people up, get them help, & clean up our public spaces?
At the very least, addicts will move away to cities and states that will let them kill themselves on the streets.
We don’t have to live like this.
Lawsuit material. Endangering lives by all this haz waste allowed to lay around means its time the ones that approved this dangerous bs be held responsible. Losing a whole pile of money slaps people back to reality and out of the leftist way of deadly thinking.