Harm Reduction Hypocrisy

[DarksidePharmacist]

I was a bit saddened, but not suprised to find out that it is against my local health service's policy to make wheel filters, butterfly clips, or barrels with over 5ml volume available through the NSP in town. I was told that these items would "encourage people to wack up methadone or pills". How in hell can they marry up that attitude with what is supposed a harm reduction approach? It is as if by ignoring a problem enough will make it go away... like heroin use in the jail system. It makes me mad.

Has anyone had a similar experience where they are? Or does anyone have easy access to these things? Thankfully NUAA has most injecting needs covered.

 

[Crankinit]

That's absurd, people aren't going to stop injecting pills because they don't have wheel filters, they'll just do it anyway and destroy their body.

Besides, a pill run through a wheel filter is no more dangerous than injecting street heroin, arguably less.

Either someone making decisions in your local needle exchange program is grossly misinformed, or they're refusing to stock these items for budgetary reasons and covering with excuses.

I'd imagine somewhere else in your state would stock these items though.

Luckily the needle exchange in Adelaide stocks all of these free of charge, so it's never been an issue, but it always bothers me when I hear about exchanges neglect these basic HR tools.

By that twisted logic they're using, needle exchanges should all be shut down, since they encourage drug use Of course anyone even vaguely informed on the issue knows that that isn't the case, it's scary that people with these converse opinions are in positions of authority at a supposed HR establishment.

 

[ayjay]

Unfortunately this has been policy in NSW for quite some time. NSP (needle syringe program) is an important harm reduction strategy and definitely works best when operated under harm reduction principles. Under a harm reduction lens, provision of wheel filters and butterflies is a complete no-brainer. Sad to say - the harm reduction approach is not always embraced by governments. In NSW (and probably more generally globally) it seems NSP are allowed chiefly as a public health strategy with a HIV prevention focus. So anything that is not related to HIV prevention will generally not get funded.

 

[justsayknow]

Pretty sure WASUA has some of those things if not all. Theres also a brochure they made specifically about the risk's vs benefits of IV benzo pills with a case study I think it was 3 users one goes IV one sublingual and the other goes the plug. Rectal came a close second apparently. This should be the sort of approach your NSP should take: give the users all the info they can and equipment to reduce the harms as much as they can if users do make unwise decisions about how to imbibe. I'm not sure what info they have on IV methadone or other pills but I will see if I can find a copy of the Benzo one it was quite interesting.

 

[DarksidePharmacist]

Thanks for the input guys. I recently started working in a detox centre and i was considering running a regular information session for clients about safer injecting techniques. In the area that we service the lack of available heroin seems to have lead to a massive influx of people shooting up oxycontin, ms-contin and fentanyl over the past decade. From what I can gather, the knowledge many of these people have of safe injecting is minimal and the techniques that are being used are sometimes pretty crude. One guy I met nearly lost his arm because no one told him that he needed to peel his oxy... he then heated it to dissolve it wax and all. Needless to say the result wasn't pretty. Wheel filters are basically unheard of. I was also shocked to learn that people were using anything from vinegar to lemon juice to extract fentanyl and just shooting the whole lot up- that has to be some serious vein/injection site damage happening.

So thats what led me to making enquiries at the local NSP about filters etc. Im hoping the organisation I work for will take a more enlightened attitude on the topic when i make my proposal for the info sessions.

 

[Mr Blonde]

^ That's sad to here that kind of attitude; I wonder whose decision that was at the NSP... where in Australia are you located?

Here in Brisbane the wheel filters are available, I can't comment on the other items but they seem to be well stocked.