Pubdate: Mon, 10 Feb 2014
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 2014 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Authors: Nadim Roberts and Wendy Stueck

CRACK PIPES FOR A QUARTER

Vending Machines Put Portland Hotel Society at Odds With Federal 
Government's Tough-On-Drugs Agenda

The group that backed a supervised heroin injection site in 
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to improve addicts' health and safety 
has launched another project in the same neighbourhood: crack-pipe 
vending machines that allow users to acquire new, clean pipes for a quarter.

And like Insite - the supervised injection site that has become a 
fixture in the neighbourhood - the vending machines have put the 
Portland Hotel Society and its harm-reduction approach to drug 
addiction at loggerheads with the federal government's tough-on-drugs agenda.

"We disagree with promoters of this initiative," Steven Blaney, 
Canada's Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, said 
in a statement Saturday.

"Drug use damages the health of individuals and the safety of our 
communities," Mr. Blaney added. "While the NDP and Liberals would 
prefer that doctors hand out heroin and needles to those suffering 
from addiction, this government supports treatment that ends drug 
use, including limiting access to drug paraphernalia by young people."

Portland Hotel Society's Drug Users Resource Centre set up two 
vending machines in the Downtown Eastside about six months ago. Each 
machine holds about 200 pipes and they are restocked every five days.

"We packaged a crack pipe in polka dots and people were very 
intrigued by it and wondered what it was," Kailin See, the director 
of the Drug Users Resource Centre. "It was a hit right away."

The machines have had an impact on prices of the illicit equipment.

"This machine decreases the street value of a pipe," Ms. See said in 
a recent interview. "There was a time when pipes were scarce and 
there was a lot of violence around acquiring a pipe, so we decided to 
saturate the market."

In 2011, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority launched a free 
crack-pipe pilot program that distributed 60,000 pipes per year in 
the Downtown Eastside, driving prices down. Previously, pipes could 
cost as much as $10 - a price many users were not willing to pay.

"If a user has to choose between buying a rock for 10 dollars or 
buying a pipe, he is going to buy the rock," said Clyde Wright, a 
resident of the Downtown Eastside.

Mr. Wright has been smoking crack cocaine for 25 years and said he 
always uses his own pipe. If he doesn't have one, he can pick one up 
from the vending machine.

Makeshift pipes - fashioned from long glass tubes purchased from 
hardware stores - can have splintered glass that results in wounds 
and sores, making users more susceptible to diseases ranging from HIV 
to syphilis.

With high-quality shatterproof Pyrex pipes now available free through 
Vancouver Coastal Health or for 25 cents from the vending machines, 
crack users no longer have to turn to sharing pipes or buying them 
off the street.

"Studies have shown that individuals who use crack cocaine on a daily 
basis face all sorts of threats to their health, one of which is 
related to the use of substandard or shared pipes," Dr. M-J Milloy, a 
research co-ordinator with the B.C. Centre for Excellence in 
HIV/AIDS, said in a recent interview. "To give them better access to 
more pipes will be shown to be a good thing."

The Portland Hotel Society was a key player in launching Insite, 
which opened in 2003 and had to go to court to maintain an exemption 
from federal drug laws that allowed it to operate. That court battle 
ended in 2011, when the Supreme Court of Canada ordered Health Canada 
to grant an exemption to Insite under the Controlled Drugs and 
Substances Act, saying in its ruling that "Insite has been proven to 
save lives with no discernible negative impact on the public safety 
and health objectives of Canada."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom