Canada Uses Crack Pipe Vending Machines In an effort to stop the spread of disease, crack pipe vending machines have been installed in parts of Vancouver, Canada.
According to an story on CTV, the vending machines are operated by the The Portland Hotel Society, a local non-profit. The machines dispense crack pipes for just $0.25 each. “For us, this was about increasing access to safer inhalation supplies in the Downtown Eastside,” Kailin See, director of the Drug Users Resource Centre, told CTV. Vice has a rather good examination of the efforts to bring the machines to Vancouver and the group behind them: According to the BC Centre for Disease Control, Hepatitis C and HIV can be spread through sharing crack pipes. The intense heat and repeated usage that comes with crack addiction can quickly wear pipes down to jagged nubs. Users are always in need of fresh supplies. Like distributing clean needles, making crack pipes available is just good public health policy, as users don’t have to resort to risky activities to come up with the cash to buy one on the street. The crack pipe vending machine was the dream of Mark Townsend and Mariner Janes, of the Portland Hotel Society (PHS), a non-profit that provides services to persons with mental health and addiction issues. There are currently two machines and they’ve been in place for six months. Each holds 200 pipes and needs refilling a couple times each week. The proponents of the vending machines say they hope the idea of giving out crack pipes becomes as widely accepted as giving clean needles to IV drug users. Community support for the effort seems to be growing as well –
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