Orange County just started a needle exchange program that syringes handed out to drug addicts.
However, there is no evidence that has anything to do with this: Crews on Tuesday were picking up syringes and a few.hypodermic needles that washed up on the sands of Newport Beach near the Santa Ana River mouth.
The syringes and needles likely made their way into the river channel and were flushed by storm waters to the shoreline, just like so much other debris.
Such trash can often includes syringes, but there was an unusual increase in the number spotted since Monday, according to Newport Beach lifeguards.
People are being advised to wear shoes on that stretch of sand bordering Huntington Beach, but what about the pooches? The river mouth has become an unofficial dog beach, so let's hope Fido got a gift card to Payless Shoes for Christmas.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.