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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 15, 2016)
Street Roots • Jan. 15-21,2016 News Page 5 PIPES, from page 4 ■ “Frying pans” are one o f several supplies PPOP offers its clients for safer injection. HR nation’s first safe injection site in Seattle. (See Street Roots, “Seattle may get nation’s first safe injection site,” Dec. 11, 2015). Shilo Murphy, executive director of this avant-garde nonprofit, said his organization decided to distribute meth pipes after numerous syringe-exchange clients said they were only injecting because they didn’t have access to a glass meth pipe. People’s Harm Reduction Alliance started distributing glass stems for smoking crack cocaine six years ago. In November, the organization conducted an annual voluntary survey of its University District syringe exchange clients, and 93 of the survey takers self-reported meth use. The surveyors asked the clients who reported that they both smoke and inject meth if they injected more or less frequently since the organization began distributing meth pipes. While 5 " I continue t® hear from percent reported that service providers that II they they injected more, 46 percent said they don't have pipes available, injected the same people are ashing lo r needles amount, and 49 percent instead." said they injected less SAR A YOUNG, often. Asked if they V A N C O U V E R C O A S T A L H E A LT H H A R M R E D U C T IO N P R O G R A M S C O O R D IN A T O R were smoking more often than before pipes were available at the exchange, 26 percent said they were. While it wasn’t a scientifically sound survey, it suggests that offering pipes to users who both smoke and inject meth may encourage less injecting. “Injecting any drug can be more dangerous than smoking any drug because of the immediate issue of breaking the skin and introducing the risks of abscess, blood infection, nerve damage,” said Kim Toevs, harm reduction manager at Multnomah County. “And, if one shares injection equipment, one is at very high risk for Hepatitis C infection, as well as Hepatitis B and HIV.” n Oregon, 21 percent of intravenous drug users test positive for Hepatitis C, with 58 percent of users ages 50 to 54 testing positive, according to a May 2015 report from the Oregon Health Authority. Hepatitis C is a liver infection that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, becomes a long-term illness in 70 percent to 85 percent of people who contract i t If it becomes a chronic infection, it can lead to serious health problems and in some cases death. Studies show people who smoke methamphetamine and crack also have a higher prevalence of Hepatitis C than the general population, which has led to the “supposition” that disease transmission is occurring through pipe sharing, said Daniel Raymond, policy director at Harm Reduction Coalition in New York. The coalition advocates for harm reduction and offers training on a national level. “They may have cracked Ups, they may have burnt lips from the heat of the pipes, and there may be some blood that gets transferred on the pipe from one person to another,” he said. While there’s no slam dunk study showing access to meth pipes cuts down on disease transmission or that it will prevent people from transitioning to I » proPji..-**”* ■H SB P H O T O S B Y JOE G L O D E \ren Gabrielle bends paper clips that will serve as handles on small frying pans used to dilute drugs re injection. Gabrielle volunteered with People’s H arm Reduction Alliance m Olympia, Wash., before dng to Portland four months ago. See PIPES, page 7
