INTERIOR HEALTH PONDERS PROVIDING CRACK PIPE KITS

Interior Health is looking into the possibility of distributing
"crack kits" to help prevent the spread of disease.

But it could be some time yet before people on the streets get them.

The kits, supplied by the provincial government through the Harm
Reduction Supply Services Committee, are really just pieces of rubber
tubbing which go on the end of crack pipes, which drug users routinely share.

The committee, which includes representatives from each of the
province's health authorities, as well as the ministry of health,
decided this fall to make the kits available to any health authority
that wants them.

"At Interior Health we haven't made any decision about if or how we
would distribute them or use them," said IH's senior medical health
officer Andrew Larder.

The province has given health authorities a year to decide whether to
take and distribute the kits to drug users.

"So what we will be doing in the new year is beginning a process of
trying to determine where it would be appropriate to use them," said
Larder, "and that process is clearly going to involve discussion with
the service organizations.

"It will clearly involve consultation with the law enforcement
agencies," he said, and "it will clearly involve consultation with
the community."

Larder said researchers have known for years that using crack puts
someone at higher risk of testing positive for hepatitis B or C and
is associated with the spread of tuberculosis.

A recent study found live hep C virus on the ends of crack pipes.

"So we've known that using crack, presumably through these pipes, is
a risk factor for the transmission for a number of infectious
diseases," said Larder.

"The people who are using the pipes often have sores and burns around
their lips.

"And the pipes get contaminated with saliva, with dirty fluid and
then they share the pipes."

He added that distributing the rubber bits is a harm reduction
strategy which has been successfully used in Vancouver's Downtown
Eastside for years. Their use has been shown to reduce the spread of
communicable diseases.

However, for the harm reduction strategy to work, there has to be
buy-in from the community at large.

"We need to spend the time it takes to get everybody's support and
comfort with moving into this harm reduction strategy," said Larder.

"There is no timeline. If it takes us six months, it takes us six months.

"If it take us three months, it takes us three month. We'll do the
work we need to do to get the support."