CRACK PIPE GIVEAWAY WILL INCLUDE CHILDREN

Vancouver Coastal Health Project May Begin Next Month

They're giving crack pipes to kids.

A vulgar statement, sure to sour the most liberal sensibilities. The
very notion of arming children, innocence incarnate, with the
instruments of hard drug addiction summons outrage from deep within
the soul. Anyone engaged in such blasphemy surely occupies a rancid
corner of the human experience, alongside Randall Hopley and pimps who
prostitute children on downtown street corners.

You'd think that. But think again. A new "harm reduction" project in
the Downtown Eastside will see nurses and other healthcare officials
distribute at least 60,000 crack pipes to neighbourhood users during
an eight-month period. While final dates are pending, the project, run
by Vancouver Coastal Health, may begin next month, end sometime next
spring and cost up to $60,000. It's the first government-funded crack
pipe giveaway in Vancouver. (The Portland Hotel Society has
distributed crack pipes for more than two years but relies on private
funding for its pipe program.)

Crack pipes are basically skinny glass tubes roughly four-inches long.
According to theory, fresh pipes limit the spread of disease such as
hepatitis C. Give an addict a new pipe, they say, and you'll decrease
the rate of infection. Whether you support this project, you're
probably certain of one thing: When it comes to free crack pipes,
children need not apply.

You'd think that. But think again. According to Dr. Reka Gustafson, a
VCH medical health officer, government crack pipes are for everyone,
age notwithstanding. "This is a health regulation," said Gustafson,
during a recent phone interview. "Anybody who's competent to ask for a
health service should receive it."

According to Gustafson, pipe distributors will talk with children and
other users and help connect them with addiction services. But
there'll be no mandatory counselling or treatment attached to a free
crack pipe. If a 12-year-old girl wants a pipe, without chitchat or
medical advice, she'll get it. And your tax dollars will pay for it.
What part of Christy Clark's "Families First" agenda is this?

Of course, depriving a 12-year-old crack smoker, damaged by
exploitation and neglect, from government crack pipes won't stop her
from smoking crack. And while greater dangers exist on the street,
pipe-sharing may make her sick. But rather than spend $60,000 on free
crack pipes, why not fund prevention and recovery programs aimed at
kids. Wouldn't that be money better spent?

Children who smoke crack in the Downtown Eastside are likely victims
of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional) and predominantly aboriginal.
They likely lack positive role models and search desperately for
direction. Often, their only positive encounter with adults takes
place at healthcare centres and drop-in clinics, which will soon hand
out crack pipes. In a child's eyes, that gesture carries great weight.
Despite oversight from Gustafson and the other lab coats at VCH and
UBC, no clinical study can measure its impact. Enablement may
extinguish a child's fragile hope, dooming her forever.

And therein lies the fundamental flaw of so-called harm reduction
philosophy. It reduces a complex problem like addiction into simple
logic, that if extended, moves quickly from the absurd to the surreal.
She's already smoking crack, so let's make sure she smokes it safely.
To feed her growing habit, she's engaged in petty crime, which is
dangerous for a child. So let's give her the crack and eliminate the
middle man.

Never happen, you say? Think again. They already did it with adults
and heroin (NAOMI study, 2005-2008) and they'll do it again with
heroin (upcoming SALOME study). And with crack pipes, they'll never
attach age limits. They can't. Doing so would threaten grand plan. If
kids are too young for free crack pipes, what about free needles? If
kids are incapable of consenting to government-sanctioned drug abuse,
what about the mentally ill? What about first-time intravenous drug
users who rely on Insite nurses for direction? What about this whole
"harm reduction" thing?

No, that can of worms will remain sealed. And beginning next month,
she'll receive shiny new crack pipes like so much free candy from
representatives of the state.