I kinda have to laugh at the absurdity of having rigs legal to purchase, but yet simultaneously lay down paraphernalia charges for possessing the legally purchased syringes.
My experience when I was down in NC was that actually all the pharmacists were awesome, the cops were chilled out and let me go when I got pulled for speeding etc, the airport TSA dudes were lackadaisical (good in this case as I had to bring my supply of dope with me from Chicago and back, moving heroin in your sock through an x-ray machine at O'Hare is not fun, I shudder even recalling that). I was in Fayetteville and Charlotte and the W-S area, mostly Fayetteville though. Is this just NC cops/pharmacists etc being cool with out of state junkies or something? I mean, I get the dirty looks from pretty much every pharmacist here in the Chi save two, but in Fayetteville it was like 'let's make honestly polite, not-facetious conversation with the junkie!'
Was weird. Maybe it is just an out of stater thing, but NC impressed the hell out of me in pretty much every way. Virginia on the other hand is as far as I can tell the literal asshole of America.
EDIT: I ought to qualify these statements as follows. While NC seems to be a paradise on earth for out of state young, white, reasonably-educated males, there was no ignoring the obviously racially motivated policing. Fayetteville is kinda ghetto (made me feel right at home to be honest) and while I did get stopped once for speeding and promptly let go with no ticket, black dudes were getting pulled over in cars and on foot left and right.
The thing is though, Chicago is just as bad in this regard. That doesn't make it okay, like 'Oh it's like this everywhere, too bad!', but it makes it hard for me to sustain any sort of extra anger at the supposedly extra-racist south/southeast when the same thing exists just as explicitly and awfully here in the midwest. I'm angry about it to be sure, but no more so at North Carolinians than Chicagoans. If you ask me both groups are pretty much equally at fault.
