DRUG SPOONS STIR UP DEBATE

City Ordered To Stop Distribution Of Free 'Cookers'

THE CITY'S needle exchange has stopped handing out drug "cooking" utensils
aimed at limiting the spread of hepatitis after it turned out that
councillors and the medical officer of health knew nothing about the program.

Coun. Alex Munter, who heads the city's health and social services
committee, was unaware of the program when first interviewed but talked to
staff and asked that it be stopped.

"(The needle exchange program) has been a successful program without the
inclusion of other drug paraphernalia," he said.

Ottawa is the first city in Canada to try handing out the cooking spoons,
which aim to lessen the numbers of injection drug users who get hepatitis B
or C from drug paraphernalia.

"We call them 'cookers,' " said medical officer of health Dr. Robert
Cushman, adding that studies have shown that 50%-60% of hep C infections
are caused by tainted drug paraphernalia.

The drugs, usually heroin or cocaine, are put into the bowl of the device
and heated into a liquid and injectible form. The cookers cost only pennies
and are about the size of a deep bottle cap with a paper clip on the side.

"It hasn't really caught on," said Cushman, adding that only the most
safety-conscious of the drug-using community have been using them.

FEW DEVICES USED

The needle exchange has been handing out the cookers, along with clean
needles, for about a year but only one or two of the devices are picked up
by drug users each night.

Cushman said he still believes the cookers have medical merit but the
proposal must go back through the proper approval process before they are
handed out again.

"There'd been some problems in terms of who knew what," he said. "I didn't
really know about it. I probably should have known more."

Since the provincially mandated needle exchange program has been in place,
new HIV infections among injection drug users have dropped from about 40
people in 1994 to 12 in 2001.