Just so you know i am from a very small town in Alabama where there are no needle exchanges. I wasnt trying to make any excuses i was just explaining how it is for me personally when im out there which is what i thought this whole site was about. I havent been on here in a couple of years and honestly i am hesitant to even post anything anymore bc some of yall came down on me so hard.
I feel mildly sick saying it, but I've done similar things.
I lived in a city where each and every major and minor pharmacy that I checked(and I checked a lot) had policies against selling rigs to anyone without a script.
The needle exchanges in that and the other couple of close by cities constantly, constantly changed their hours, moved about in a unmarked dark blue van, and if you could find them, you were almost guaranteed a stop and visit from one of the 3-5 patrol cars that made a circuit around the exchange van.
Their thinking seemed to be that if you were making that level of effort to come get rigs, you very well might have brought your dope, too. Stupid, but it happened.
I was reduced to checking in with 2-3 bodega's that would randomly sell you a wrapped single if you asked in Spanish. Sometimes they'd sell you one, sometimes they'd angrily tell you to get out.
Everything was geared towards preventing people from getting new rigs. On more than one occasion I witnessed people actually go up and purchase a unwrapped rig from one of the corner guys who was amongst the regular pushers. These guys would have a pocketful of sometimes sealed, sometimes not, rigs and people would fucking buy them.
I would eventually track down the exchange van. But, then their policy was one dirty for one clean. So, if I'd been short of freshies for 2 weeks, I'd only have 3-6 to exchange. It was a absolute nightmare.
So, the advice to just go down and purchase a ten pack doesn't always apply. The advice to hit up the needle exchange does not always apply.
So..... I feel yer pain, CG1980. I have used rigs that the numbers had worn off. I have used rigs that were dull as fuck. I knew how dangerous it was.
Sometimes, in that situation there, when I was already sick as fuck, had just went through the daily tedium of gathering enough cash to get what I needed, and then got it, I didn't feel quite up to driving around the city, trying 10 different pharmacies and bodega's, already knowing that it would be a wasted hour or 2 and I'd still end up using that fucked point that was in my kit.
Not trying to start anything or derail shit. I just know how bad it can be.