City approves free crack pipes, moves towards safe injection site study

published on September 19, 2016 by Adam Carter, in CBC

The city of Hamilton is taking steps to become a safer place for drug users.

On Monday, the board of health approved plans to offer clean crack pipes, expand Hamilton's opioid overdose-reversing naloxone program, and begin exploring the viability of local safe injection sites for intravenous drug users.

The official approval of the safe injection sites and the expansion of the naloxone program is contingent on a debate for the 2017 budget — as costs were a sticking point for some.

Still, it's a decisive shift towards Hamilton Public Health's harm reduction strategy, which prizes the safety of drug users over just about anything else.

As Associate Medical Officer of Health Dr. Jessica Hopkins calls it, it's all about "meeting people where they're at."

"We want to keep people alive, or to keep them from getting or spreading disease," Hopkins said at Monday's meeting.

"This isn't the same as condoning or supporting drug use — this is about keeping people safe."

A move away from the war on drugs

So under this harm reduction strategy, what would Hamilton look like should all these measures come to fruition?

Well, city staff and agencies will hand out clean pipes for smoking crack (with costs covered by the province), as sharing them is known to spread HIV and hepatitis C.

View the full article >>

BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS

Search form

City approves free crack pipes, moves towards safe injection site study

Search form