VANCOUVER IS NOW PUSHING FREE CRACK PIPES

As it awaits a Supreme Court decision on the fate of its downtown drug
injection site, Vancouver's public health authority announced plans
for a pilot project to give addicts free crack pipes.

Supporters say it will protect addicts from overdose and diseases such
as HIV and bring them into the health-care system. Critics, meanwhile,
say programs that emphasize harm reduction over abstinence or
treatment are a quick fix for the complicated problem of drug
addiction and are part of a broader push to legalize drug use.

"It gives politicians and other people an opportunity to say, 'look
we're doing something.' But I don't think we're seeing the benefits
that were anticipated when a lot of people embraced this approach that
emphasizes harmreduction," said Tom Stamatakis, head of both Vancouver
Police Association and the Canadian Police Association. "I've been
working in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside for at least 20 years and I
can't really say that things are much better there than they were 20
years ago." Vancouver Coastal Health, which funds the controversial
InSite, North America's only supervised drug injection clinic, said it
was looking to launch a pilot project in the fall that would hand out
free crack pipes to address a shift in the city's drug culture away
from drug injection and toward crack smoking, said medical health
officer Dr. Reka Gustafson.

Health officials already hand out mouthpieces, filters and push sticks
for smoking crack. But the users have to supply their own pipes and
often use makeshift pipes made by other users or reuse them so much
that the glass wears down and explodes. Health officials also hope to
stop the spread of diseases like hepatitis C among addicts who share
their pipes.

The program is an extension of the city's harm-reduction programs for
drug users, such as needle exchanges, Dr. Gustafson said.

"People have assumed this is some sort of big philosophical change,"
she said. "This is a practical change. If you're going to provide
harm-reduction services, then you want to make sure you're addressing
the harms that are occurring. It's really just knowing that there's
been a shift toward crack cocaine smoking over the past decade in our
population, and it doesn't make sense to provide harm-reduction
supplies for injections only."

Other cities such as Toronto and Winnipeg have been handing out free
pipes for years, but in Vancouver officials have instead pushed the
federal government unsuccessfully for an exemption from drug laws to
operate supervised facilities for crack smokers alongside its
injection site. InSite operated legally thanks to an exemption to
federal drug laws until Ottawa pulled the plug in 2008, prompting a
court challenge that is awaiting a Supreme Court of Canada decision.

Critics of the pilot project say it's a way around the federal
government's refusal to grant the city a legal exemption and warn it's
part of a broader movement to downplay the harmful effects of drug
addiction.

"They're calling it an experiment, but it's not an experiment at all,"
said David Berner, the B.C.-based executive director of the Drug
Prevention Network of Canada. "There's nothing to learn from this and
it's just opening the door wider to the legalization of
everything."

The project puts police in an uncomfortable position, said Mr.
Stamatakis, who argues that such programs have taken the spotlight off
of badly needed treatment and prevention programs.

"You've got an addict saying, 'I just got this thing from Coastal
Health' and a police officer saying, 'I've got to seize it,' " he
said. "These kinds of policy decisions are a bit frustrating from a
front-line policing perspective because it makes the already difficult
work even more challenging."

Drug-treatment programs don't work for all addicts, while
harm-reduction strategies such as free needles and pipes save lives
and help addicts trust health-care professionals, said Walter
Cavalieri of the Canadian Harm Reduction Network.

"We need a critical public debate about the efficacy of harm reduction
and not succumb to ideological arguments that this is not good and
that it is enabling [drug use], which it isn't," he said. "Harm
reduction will save lives. It will save money. It will improve society."