WINNIPEG ADDICTS HANDED CRACK KITS

WINNIPEG -- City health officials are hoping to keep crack addicts from
spreading infectious diseases by handing out kits complete with glass tube
pipes, matches and lip balm.

Dr. Margaret Fast, the city's medical officer of health, believes providing
the kits -- which also include a pipe cleaner, screens, alcohol swabs, gum
and condoms -- will help develop trust between addicts and workers with the
city's outreach program, which has so far distributed about 100 of the
packages.

"This is sometimes our only opportunity to actually engage in discussion
with users," Fast said.

Winnipeg based its crack pipe program on a similar one in Toronto, which
Fast said has proved successful.

The program neither encourages nor discourages crack use, Fast said, but is
a logical step in trying to limit the spread of hepatitis C and HIV.

But downtown activist Harry Lehotsky disagrees.

"Maybe next they'll hand out bongs or rolling papers," Lehotsky said. "How
far do we go to enable people's self-destruction?"

Each kit costs the government $1.50 to $2. That money would be better spent
on creating more drug treatment programs, Lehotsky said.