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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 7 PIPES, from page 5 injection, he said his organization considers it a “promising intervention that we’re interested in.” Lauren Gabrielle, 26, has been volunteering with PPOP since she moved to Portland four months ago. She’s a former meth smoker. She said glass pipes are safer than the common alternatives - broken light bulbs and aluminum foil - which she often used to smoke meth. “I constantly had cuts and burns on my lips,” she said. “I was putting myself at risk for blood- borne viruses. I remember I had a bleeding lip and I was sharing.” As she spoke, she fashioned paper clips into handles for “tiny frying pans” used for preparing drugs for injection. The pans are one of several sanitary supplies PPOP offers its clients for safer injection. Toevs, who oversees Multnomah County’s syringe exchange program, said that while the county supports different approaches to harm reduction, it would not consider offering meth pipes without evidence it would work better than the county’s current efforts, which she thinks have the strongest impact. PHO TO S BY JOE G LO DE “The dramatic increase in heroin use of the This spread sits on a table in the back o f the Annares Infoshop and community center in St. Johns each Saturday. last few years has stretched the county and our Volunteers with PPOP, who are mostly former or current drug users, operate a syringe exchange. PPOP offers visitors partner syringe exchange very thin financially,” supplies such as safe injection tools, condoms, bandages and toothbrushes. she said in an email. She said county syringe exchange clientele which is under consideration. dozen people came into the back of the have not reported using needles because pipes bookshop to get syringes and other items. weren’t available. “Do you need any Narcan or water?” i i Tknow from my personal experience working “We know of no evidence that people who JLwith these programs,” said Raymond, of volunteer Wren Ronan asked each guest. Narcan don’t have meth pipes will turn to injecting,” i« a brand name for overdose-reversing drug the Harm Reduction Coalition in New York, “the she said. j naloxone. most powerful effect-.of starting a syringe In Canada, major health care provider One visitor revealed an open, oozing, bright exchange program is that it actually becomes Vancouver Coastal Health launched a pilot pink abscess on his wrist. Gabrielle pulled out a the engagement strategy.” project in 2011 to see if distributing crack pipes first aid kit and bandaged him up. He said the same could apply to meth pipes. “A lot of people have hard time going to the would be an effective means of harm reduction. If an organization offers a stigmatized and high- hospital,” Pettit said. “The treatment is An evaluation of the pilot project showed a risk population something tangible, like a meth in h u m a n e , and you feel weak and powerless and significant decrease in respondents who pipe, it starts a conversation, and that alone. At least that was my experience.” reported bums and cuts on their mouths and conversation can lead to connecting drug users She said they see about five people each day hands and an uptick in safer smoking habits, with services, such as health care and addiction with serious skin care needs. They aren’t such as not sharing pipes and using mouth treatment, he said. medically trained, so they usually refer people covers. Out of about 65,000 crack user visits for On their table in the back of the Anarres to Bud Clark Clinic, but it’s open only four days safer smoking kits, which were made by about Infoshop on North Lombard, PPOP volunteers a week, and only for a few hours two of those 4,200 crack users, there were at least 1,280 offer an array of pamphlets and fliers containing days. referrals to addictions services and more than information about resources their clients may “We need someone who can come in and do 9,000 referrals to other social services. want to access - from skin and dental care to abscess care,” Junge said. It’s one of many Vancouver Coastal Health now hands out information about blood-borne disease. What additions the volunteers would like to make to 90,000 safer smoking kits, which include a crack they don’t offer is information about drug PPOP. stem, each year from about 25 different treatm ent Murphy plans to come down from Seattle for community health center locations across “It’s not a recovery-based program,” PPOP the meth pipe program rollout Friday, when western Canada, said Sara Young, harm volunteer Megan Pettit said. “If people are PPOP will take pipes, along with the syringes, reduction programs coordinator. interested in quitting, we point them to Outside naloxone and hygiene items it regularly delivers “I continue to hear from service providers In or the county syringe exchange.” via bike to drug users along its route. that if they don’t have pipes available, people So far, she said, they haven’t had anyone ask The only hurdle, Junge said, is figuring out are asking for needles instead,” she said. “That’s about treatment. how to transport the fragile glass pipes without what we hear around the meth pipes as well, Pettit said she’s a former meth and heroin that because we don’t have meth pipes available, breaking them. user, and she remembers it wasn’t easy for her “We might have to go to the post office and people ask for injection supplies instead.” to find clean, new pipes when she was using five buy some padded envelopes,” he said. She said the apparent need for meth pipe years ago. distribution is only anecdotal until her employer emily@streetroots. org In the space of about 45 minutes, about a conducts a pilot project around meth pipes -
