Defiant San Francisco Program Gives Out Free Crack Pipes

[Jabberwocky]

Defiant San Francisco Program Gives Out Free Crack Pipes

A renegade program in San Francisco has been distributing clean crack pipes since March, despite opposition from city leaders. The program has similar aims to needle exchange, like reducing HIV transmissions among crack users, and was supported by the city’s HIV Prevention Planning Council. But it was immediately shut down by both the Mayor’s office and the Department of Health.

However, volunteers have gone ahead with the program anyway, despite the risk of arrest. ”Our goal is to demonstrate that you can do this and all hell won’t break loose,” says Isaac Jackson, a drug user who is the main organizer behind the effort. So far, Jackson and about five other volunteers have handed out about 200 kits—including clean glass pipes and sanitary wipes—on the street. The clean pipe initiative is funded by an anonymous donor and is apparently planning to expand, though no concrete venue has yet agreed to house the efforts.

The clean pipe initiative was inspired by efforts up north in Vancouver, North America’s pioneer in terms of progressive harm reduction efforts. Vancouver’s life-saving supervised injection facility, Insite, has been reducing overdoses and promoting safer drug use for over a decade. Earlier this year, the organization behind Insite set up two vending machines to dispense sterilized crack pipes.

Jackson says that San Francisco’s opposition to the clean pipe initiative came as a “big surprise.” The city’s needle exchange program now provides over 2.7 million clean syringes a year.

http://www.substance.com/rogue-san-francisco-program-gives-out-free-crack-pipes/

As someone who's been arrested for working as a street nurse, I can say it was totally, absolutely, 100% worth it. They're doing the right thing, despite the danger to them from the state security apparatus. PtP!

 

['medicine cabinet']

You can buy a glass pen and some chore boy for like 2 bux around here...tho free is always better.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^True, although syringes, where available, as also super duper cheap. Yet exchanges provide so many, despite the low cost. I guess when every ten cents counts big time till your next two dollar hit, of which you need every 10-30 minutes, the even lower cost of crack pipes v syringes makes a big difference. Anything like this program or an exchange needs (not should, but needs) to be promoted and cultivated if we're at all serious about public health and the public good.

 

[ro4eva]

As someone who's been arrested for working as a street nurse, I can say it was totally, absolutely, 100% worth it. They're doing the right thing, despite the danger to them from the state security apparatus. PtP!

For what it's worth, thank you for volunteering your time - and risking being locked up - in order to help reduce an often overlooked, but serious long term part of the harm risk typically associated with the use of 'crackling' cocaine

 

[Jabberwocky]

^Thanks I mean, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't love to do it, and that's the main thing for me. Of course it also just makes stupid sense too.

The history of those risking their freedom to be part of early needle exchanges in NYC and then other major urban areas in the early and mid 80's is fascinating, really awesome and at times intense reads. We certainly have a long way to go, but looking back it still is amazing how far we've come (well, maybe more like how horrible the situation was not really that long ago).

I will say, I'd have been fucked by law enforcements generally, drug law enforcement especially (notably the LAPD, they're the worst out of the seven or eight different PDs I've come in contact with IMHO), if I hadn't had a good criminal attorney who knew whats up when it comes to local drug law enforcement and local DAs. You really need that, a criminal defense attorney who, if she doesn't have a good working relationship with local prosecutors, at least knows them, their methods and tendencies well enough to effectively deal with.

Sadly a lot of if not most folks don't have that, but it is really absolutely necessary for anyone doing that kind of work in the current, long standing anti-harm reduction or harm reduction adverse of police almost everywhere in the states (and if not entire departments, a lot of officers still hold such bigoted, insanely stupid beliefs). Other than actually finding such an attorney, a lot also can't afford the cost of a private criminal defense attorney. They don't necessary cost more than any other reasonably priced lawyer, at least, but it's still money many people just don't have.

 

[paranoid android]

They give out free crack pipes at the needle exchange here and have been doing so for years. There's so many crackheads here they can't even keep up for the demand

 

[my3rdeye]

I am 90 percent sure i got mono from sharing a joint outside a bar a few years ago. The list of things you could get sharing a pipe are kind of scary. The flu, TB, herpes? People think I am a dick for not sharing but if i had a cut on my lip and you a cut on your lip anything could get passed on.