[In response to "Despite deregulation, syringe sales reported slow"]

Those pictured seem to be BD Ultra-Fine II U-100 Insulin Syringes – Short (5/16″) 31 Gauge Needle. Because they have the white overcap on the plunger, that would indicate that they’re packaged in bags; individually-packaged syringes don’t have that overcap. List price on a box of 90 syringes (10 bags of 9 syringes) is $51.99, and drugstores retail them for about half that.

Pricing is highly competitive on products for diabetics, because diabetics are about the best customers a pharmacy has. The ultra-fine needles (which are shorter, to prevent buckling) cost a couple of bucks per box more. Larger syringes (1 cc instead of 1/2 cc) cost a couple of bucks more, but usually have the thicker needles, so the price works out the same.

Where are you finding syringes for $15 per hundred? My late first wife was taking steroid shots for her SLE before I was taking insulin for my diabetes, and the last time I saw prices that low was the early 1980s.

In the movies, heroin users dissolve a packet of powder in water, stir it up and heat it (in a spoon, using a cigarette lighter) and then inject the hot viscous fluid into a vein. An insulin syringe isn’t very suitable for that. The needles want to buckle, just penetrating a thin rubber membrane at the top of an insulin bottle. The slightest bit of heat would make it even worse. Insulin is very thin, and you’d need a bigger needle for viscous fluids like heroin. And you need a longer needle for intravenous, rather than subcutaneous, injection. I’d think you’d use a glass syringe with changeable needles, rather than a flimsy insulin syringe.

And do heroin users really need eight fixes a day? I try to reuse my single-use syringes, because I’m a cheap SOB. Are heroin addicts all that fastidious?

I’ve thought for a long time that it was silly to make insulin available without a prescription, for the benefit of diabetics in an emergency, yet require a prescription for the syringe, making the insulin availability meaningless. That’s probably a sufficient reason to make syringes available without a prescription.

If I was a heroin user, however, I’d be reluctant to walk into a local drugstore and ask for a hundred syringes suitable for heroin, even if I had the money.  It sounds like a good way to get the cops keeping a close eye on you.