Hypodermic needles everywhere in La Crosse

Heroin problem could be leading to needle problem

Spring is in the air. And the needles are on the ground.

Now that that temps are up and the snow is gone, kids are playing, and finding, used hypodermic needles everywhere. 

New reports say spring is revealing a bounty of old needles here and there and everywhere in La Crosse. 

“When they get done with the needle, the concern is to get rid of the evidence of drug use,” La Crosse police captain Jason Melby, “and they discard the needle and it doesn’t just happen in a public alley. If they toss it out the window and it lands in somebody’s backyard, the property owner is stuck with that needle.” 

As for what the city can do about it?

“I can’t tell you that there is something of that nature in place,” Melby said of a formalized plan.

The La Crosse fire department gets calls daily to pick up hypodermic needles.

“Frequently, when we end up discovering them, they’re simply discarded,” Melby said. “There’s no identifiable owner. There’s no way to track it back to who discarded the needle.

Needles aren’t tested, says Melby, but the presumption is the numbers have a connection with the city’s heroin use epidemic and an explosive use of a downtown needle exchange.