Street Roots • Jan. 15-21,2016
News
Page 5
PIPES, from page 4
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“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