FREE PIPES DISTRIBUTED TO CURB DISEASE

VANCOUVER -- Free crack pipes are being handed out to addicts in
Vancouver's Downtown Eastside as part of a Vancouver Coastal Health
harm reduction project aimed to stop the spread of HIV and hepatitis B
and C.

One distribution centre has handed out roughly 3,500 of the kits ""
which include shatterproof glass pipes "" since the beginning of the
month. The intention is to provide safe pipes that should reduce
injury to users' lips and mouths that can make them more susceptible
to disease.

The kits are part of a $60,000 eight-month trial project and include
filters, mouthpieces, alcohol, swabs, push sticks and screens.

"oeIn the same way we didn't think access to needles was going to
resolve all the issues associated with injecting drugs, this is not
solving all the issues associated with smoking drugs," said Aiyanas
Ormond, a community organizer and volunteer coordinator at the
Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU).

"oeBut we hope that it'll make people who are addicted to and
smoking crack cocaine a little healthier and will also take some of
the burden off of the health care system.

"oeFor every pipe that we distribute there's an interaction about
what the least harmful way of doing your drugs is "" it's not just
doling out the supplies, it's about having those interactions with
those people."

Ormond said VANDU distributes more than 100 kits a day from its East
Hastings headquarters and also prepares the kits for four other DTES
distribution centres: the Lookout Shelter, the Portland Hotel Society,
the Washington Needle Depot and the Drug and Alcohol Meeting Support
for Women.

Each of these five centres will report back to the VCH with the data
they collect.

Health officials already provide mouthpieces for crack pipes but not
the pipe itself. This means many drug users have been sharing the
glass pipes, which may be old or chipped, and are at risk of
contracting a disease such as hepatitis C from cuts on their mouths,
or respiratory illness or pneumonia from inhaling crumbling filters or
the drug directly into their lungs.

Ormond says about 70 per cent of the addicts grabbing the kits at
VANDU are male, ranging in age from their 20s to their 60s.

Heroin users can get clean needles from needle-exchange programs or
the city's supervised injection site.

In July 2007, the City of Ottawa's crack pipe distribution program
was cancelled in part because of complaints by residents about
discarded pipes on their lawns.

The program was revived five months later by the provincial
government.

A 2010 University of Ottawa report concluded that the safe inhalation
program in the nation's capital successfully reduced the amount of
pipe sharing that takes place among the city's crack users.

Researchers found that the percentage of people who reported sharing a
pipe dropped to 49 per cent from 64 per cent during the 11-month study.

- - With a file from Postmedia News