Off The Record

As Soon As You See These Vending Machines On Your Street, Start Packing

Published on June 24, 2024

Local junkies are in love with the city officials’ new drug-themed vending machine; they filled up on its complimentary crack pipes, lip balm, and Narcan, quickly emptying it overnight.

Drug user Evelyn Williams said to The Post, “Yes, I love it,” on Tuesday while she was in Brownsville, Brooklyn, near the “public health” vending machine. “They put it in yesterday, and it’s empty already.”

A staffer for the drug prevention program began replenishing the vending machine at 1 p.m. with additional drug-test strips, Narcan, and condoms, anticipating that the machine could need to be restocked “maybe twice a day, depending on which items go quite quickly.”

“We have a lot of addicts and heroin users over here,” Williams said. “They should re-stock it immediately!”

About 11 a.m., self-described crack smoker Minoshi Calpe, 56, left the vending machine with the second-to-last item, a fentanyl test strip, after noticing that the glass used to hold the free pipes might not be up to her standards.

“I like the Pyrex because it’s a little thicker,’’ she said, also lamenting that “you can’t even sell that [vending stuff] because the programs give you all that stuff” already for free.

Calpe, who stated she has six children and nine grandkids, remarked, “The crack pipes are a little too thin now. And every time I pull on [the newer ones], it was burning my lips. I was like, ‘Hell, no! I like my lips too much for this.’

“I do my little crack here and there,” Caple said. “I smoke my pipe, and I smoke weed. I don’t lace none of my stuff with stuff.”

She laughed and stated, “I’m trying to get high, not die” holding out her fentanyl test strip, before dancing away down the street.

Another man simply gave a reporter the thumbs up and exclaimed, “Yeah!” as he passed the empty vending machine on a bicycle.

By late afternoon, Elan Quashie, the drug-prevention employee, had restocked some of the vending machine’s other products but had not replaced the pipes.

“We got a lot of positive feedback from some individuals that actually used the machine, and I think they were pleased to know that the items were actually free,” he said. “So with that being said, you know, we had an idea that a lot of selections will go very quickly.

“Happy that it did.”

One resident came by to take one of the restocked fentanyl testing strips at one point.

“I want to make sure the s–t ain’t fenty before I use it,” he remarked. “I want to test what I buy first so I know what it is.”

Installed in the drug-ridden neighborhood on Monday, the machine is the first of four new devices that will give away free drug-related items to the community.

These include fentanyl-detecting strips, condoms, tampons, and nicotine gum, as well as drug-smoking kits that come with pipes, mouthpieces, and lip balm.

At a news appearance on Monday to showcase the vending machine, Ashwin Vasan, the city’s commissioner of health and mental hygiene, stated that future machines might also contain needles used to inject heroin and other substances.

According to the authorities, the goal is to reduce the rising number of overdose deaths and keep drug users safer by providing hygienic supplies.

However, the project is unpopular with certain communities and officials.

Less than a day after opening for business, early on Tuesday morning, the only things remaining in the previously stocked machine were two drug test strips and a single Narcan overdose-reversing kit.

About the machine, Williams said, “Thank God. I’ve never OD’d, but two people in my house OD’d this year back-to-back, and I used Narcan, and they both lived.

“Two years ago, someone died in my house,” she said. “I thought he was sleeping, man. He was snoring. He OD’d, but I didn’t know it.”

The machines, unstocked, cost eleven thousand dollars per. Customers merely need to punch in a zip code to obtain the free drug paraphernalia and other stuff from them.

However, several local police officers find the project objectionable.

On Tuesday, City Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) angrily told The Post, “Our city should not be commodifying addiction, and anyone supporting these vending machines should be ashamed of themselves.”

“The money the Health Department is spending on these machines — which are providing, among other things, free crack pipes to drug-addicted individuals — should be spent on rehabilitation and social services to actually help addicts rather than on items like these which only encourage their addiction,” she said.

A bystander in Brownsville likewise disapproved of the program.

“That shouldn’t be there!” the man yelled. “I don’t care what the f–k you put in there! You’re better off moving that and putting an ambulance in there!”

“Poor Choices,” an unidentified critic scribbled on the ground close by.

Additionally, it appears that Mayor Eric Adams, who ran against legalizing dangerous substances in 2021 as a candidate against drug use, is making a change with the contentious machine.

“I don’t support legalizing crack cocaine,” Adams declared in a debate with Andrew Yang, the then-mayoral candidate. “It’s devastating when you see what it does. I don’t support the legalization of heroin. I don’t support the legalization of those serious drugs at all.”

However, the Adams administration also stated earlier this year that it aimed to have five “safe” drug injection sites operational in the city by 2025, allowing drug users to inject without worrying about being arrested.

Injecting facilities are already available at two nonprofit organizations located in Manhattan’s Washington Heights and Harlem.

Additional sites are anticipated to open in the South Bronx and other drug-ridden neighborhoods.