READY, FIRE, AIM: The Late-Night Vending Machine – Pagosa Daily Post News Events & Video for Pagosa Springs Colorado

Oct 31, 2024

A couple of weeks ago, a friend asked me to pick her up at the regional medical center in Durango, following some minor surgery.

I was a bit surprised to find a vending machine in the waiting room, filled with junk food.

I suppose it’s easy to conflate medical facilities with the idea of “health”. Mistakenly.

Not that I have anything against vending machines per se.. Or Snickers bars. Or medical facilities. If a regional medical center wants people sitting in their waiting room, eating high fructose corn syrup, who am I to object? It’s entirely possible the medical center knows more about health than I do.

No, I didn’t buy anything from the vending machine. Although I was sorely tempted. But that memory of that machine came flooding back yesterday, when I heard about a new type of vending machine currently popping up in American cities.

From an October 28 article by journalist Martha Bebinger on WBUR.org, titled “Stocking vending machines with needles and Narcan to curb overdose deaths”:

North Adams is a hub of modern art, a haven for stressed New Yorkers, and an autumn leaf peeping destination. Many visitors will drive right by an unusual vending machine. It dispenses clean syringes, pipes for smoking crack or methamphetamine, Narcan to reverse opioid overdoses, condoms, and more.

This colorfully painted vending machine sits outside the entrance to Berkshire Harm Reduction, a clinic where staff members hand out those same ‘harm reduction’ items Monday through Friday, from 8am to 4:30pm.

But drug use continues, I’m told, after hours and on weekends. Thus, the convenience of having a vending machine.

Some clients call the vending machine a potential life-saver.

On college campuses, it’s reportedly more common to find ‘wellness’ vending machines that dispense condoms, emergency contraception, and other safe sex supplies. And maybe Narcan as well. Doesn’t hurt to have Narcan available, considering the availability of opioids, thanks to the American pharmaceutical industry.

But there are lots of other drugs around besides opioids, if you’re looking to have some fun and risk your life.

I came across this little chart:

I knew about heroin and cocaine and LSD (not from personal experience.) And cannabis, of course (from personal experience.) But apparently there are numerous other illicit drugs out there which I’d not heard of, and almost all of which are apparently less addictive than tobacco.

When I was a kid, there were vending machines around, dispensing cigarettes. You had to be a certain age to use those machines. Ha ha ha.

The chart above seems to be including alcohol as a drug. To me, alcohol has always been a ‘beverage’.

I don’t think it would be a good idea to have beer and wine dispensed from a vending machine, but I don’t see any harm in dispensing, say, a beer koozie. Why should heroin users have all the late-night advantages?

Beer koozies, condoms, and Snickers bars. Now that’s a vending machine I could get excited about.

But I think we could be more creative with the design of the vending machines. When I did my research for this humor column, all the ‘harm reduction’ vending machines seemed to be plain-Jane rectangular boxes.

Useful and helpful, sure. But boring.

But in Japan, artists somehow got a hold of the vending machine industry, and made the whole experience a good deal more fun.

Can you imagine coming across a vending machine like this, when you were high on LSD?

As mentioned, I don’t have any personal experience with LSD. And maybe you don’t either. But can you imagine it?

Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all.