MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A Twin Cities group is doing its best to prevent violence and get drug needles off the streets. The only city contract to pick up needles used for illegal drug injection is with the community group, “A Mother’s Love.”

What is A Mother’s Love?

The backstory:

“A Mother’s Love” is known for their anti-violence work and focus on improving the lives of women and children. But they also do needle pick-up.

Used drug needles are a major problem in Minneapolis, as drug use is a problem. 

While there are needle disposal boxes in the city, they’re often not used, and the used needles are tossed on the ground. 

Thousands of needles cleaned up

By the numbers:

In 2024, AML picked up about 2,500 needles. That included 311 calls and the street sweeps. It did not include the boxes the city places for needle disposal. The 2025 numbers do include that though, and it’s up to 2,700 collected so far this year. 

What do they pick up?

What they’re saying:

The crew encounters all kinds of potentially dangerous situations picking up the used needles.

“Oh yeah, you have needles with blood, full of blood. Why? Because they didn’t do it correctly or they shot it all in. Then they let the blood fill it back up and they took the needle out and just threw it,” said crew leader Cordell Burton. He goes on to say, “I don’t think nobody ever been stuck on our crew yet. Because we take precaution. We don’t go through kicking stuff when you do stuff like that. That’s when the needle can fly up and stick you in your leg.”

Tracking the numbers

Dig deeper:

The Minnesota Department of Human Services keeps numbers on injected drug use by asking questions about use in licensed treatment facilities. In 2021, 13,000 people injected illegal drugs. In 2022, 11,700 and in 2023, there were about 10,500.  The 2024 numbers are not in yet.

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