Safeworks continues to distribute free needles and condoms but is ordered to stop handing out free crack pipes.
Addicts and researchers confused about health board’s edict
The man’s jaundiced eyes gaze at the lightning-filled horizon. Moments ago he had been shouting in frustration at the occupants of a black van discreetly parked near the downtown Drop-In Centre. Now he resignedly says that he doesn’t understand why the government has ordered Safeworks — a harm-reduction program that hands out safe sex supplies and clean needles in downtown Calgary from the van — to stop distributing free crack pipes to addicts like himself.
“It’s going to cause problems” the man says in a thick North African accent. “It’s going to cause really big problems.”
The Sudanese immigrant and other Calgary crack addicts are disturbed because after years of funding the distribution of crack pipes Alberta Health Services (AHS) suddenly stopped the pipe program — a program that without its existence addicts resort to using broken lightbulbs pop cans and car antennas to smoke their crack. Some people are wondering why the distribution that has operated since 2008 ended so abruptly while others are applauding the province because they think it’s ridiculous that taxpayers are funding perhaps even fuelling addicts’ crack dependency.
MEDIA POWER
On Tuesday August 2 the Calgary Sun published a series of articles detailing the crack pipe hand-outs. The newspaper’s crime reporter wrote an opinion story stating that “officials doling out tools of the trade is tantamount to giving up on those battling addictions” and that “handing out pipes means promoting the use of crack cocaine to the very people trying to escape its clutches.” Two weeks later the Sun suggested that they “brought this issue to the forefront” and they “learned Calgary has been doling them out for about three years.”
The articles caused an explosion of opinions. Calgary Sun readers were furious that the province would spend their tax money on addicts. Their online comments included deporting all addicts to an island as “it is a lifestyle choice that they keep choosing time after time” and to “take these crack heads and drop them at the bottom of a lake somewhere.”
Bruce Conway media official with AHS says the province’s decision to stop funding crack pipes was not made due to financial concerns. Instead he repeatedly referenced a press release that was sent out to all media outlets stating there is “reasonable potential for a legal challenge.” At this point no legal action has been taken he says.
Tim Richter CEO of the Calgary Homeless Foundation calls the reason given by AHS a “red herring.”
“There may well be a legal challenge out there but I think that they got negative press and the last thing they want is to be on the front page for something like this” Richter says.
CHECK THE RESEARCH
British Columbia isn’t only known in the harm-reduction world for housing Vancouver’s safe injection site. In addition to the notorious safe injection program — which is currently facing closure due to opposition from the Harper government — researchers in the province have published many articles over the years about the effectiveness of harm reduction in reducing disease transmission and connecting addicts with health care providers.
Andrew Ivsins a research assistant at the Centre for Addictions Research at B.C. who recently completed a study of crack pipes sharing in Victoria and Vancouver says that researchers have found that addicts will resort to smoking crack with dangerous alternatives if they don’t have clean pipes.
“When you have pipes that people are using that are made from broken glass — which cut their lips — or they’re using metal — which burn their lips — and then they’re sharing them diseases in the blood can be transmitted” Ivsins says. Those diseases transmitted through blood include hepatitis C hepatitis B HIV and tuberculosis which can be transmitted through other high-risk behaviours such as unprotected sex but clean pipes eliminate the chance of contracting them through the hardware Ivsins says.
“It’s terrible what people will use to smoke crack with if they don’t have something.”
A University of British Columbia study published in 2008 cited other various health risks that can emerge when clean crack pipes aren’t provided. In some cases steel wool may be used as a screen which can break into loose particles then accidently inhaled. Plastic push sticks such as ball point pens may melt within the pipe which may result in the user inhaling toxic fumes.
Philippe Lucas a counsellor on Victoria’s city council and an apologist of crack kit distribution says “The delivery of crack pipes is not meant to stop addiction. That’s not the goal.” Crack kits he says clearly aid in the prevention of disease and also help connect a vulnerable population with health-care providers.
John Bodman a Calgary resident says he’s living proof that crack pipe programs work.
“I’m 68 years old I was on the streets for 13 years I smoked a lot of crack and I have no diseases whatsoever. That’s because I didn’t share pipes” says Bodman who speaks at a varitey of harm reduction conferences about the importance of services like Safeworks. Most addicts he says won’t spend the extra $10 they have on a pipe and will instead share an improvised device with a friend.
“If your buddy’s got a pop can you’re going to share the crack with him rather than buy a pipe. That’s just the way it is.”
THE NAY-SAYERS
For many Conservative politicans research is trumped by ideology. In response to Vancouver Coastal Health’s decision to introduce a crack pipe distribution pilot project federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said in early August: “I am not in the business of passing out free crack pipes to anyone.” Similarly Joy Smith — a Manitoba member of Parliament and chair of the Standing Committee on Health — recently told a Calgary forum: “I’ve gone to the [harm reduction] site in Vancouver and there’s no way that I can support that as a human being.”
To Lucas of Victoria’s city council the significant cost savings of distributing crack pipes should appeal to even the most conservative citizens and politicians. In 2010 Calgary’s Safeworks distributed about 7000 pipes. Each tube cost 33 cents each with the program cosingt about $2300 each year. One round of hepatitis C treatment for one person can cost up to $30000.
“In a modern liberal democracy we have to have the distribution of public health guided by evidence and not ideology” Lucas says.
On Monday August 15 an internal memo was sent to Safeworks staff informing them AHS was halting the crack pipe program. At the week’s end the Calgary Sun triumpantly declared victory with a cover headline: “Stick that in your free pipe and smoke it!”
Bodman the former addict reacts dispondently. “I don’t think the program will ever come back. There’s a [provincial] election coming up and the government wants to look squeaky clean. People in Pump Hill Country Hills Estates and Cougar Ridge don’t come east of the Crowchild so they don’t even know that this place exists down here.”
