Ottawa group to keep handing out crack pipes

A social agency that helps Ottawa residents affected by AIDS says it will continue handing out free crack pipes to addicts for at least a little while, despite the cancellation of a city program that supplies them.

"Until I'm told I can't hand them out, I'm going to hand them out, yeah," said Michelle Ball, a former cocaine addict who works for the AIDS Committee of Ottawa.

She said she is appalled that city council voted Wednesday to cancel the program,which provided rubber-tipped glass tubes for smoking crack in an effort to reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis through pipe sharing among drug users.

Council ended the program, which costs the city about $7,500 a year, after some councillors argued it sent a mixed message about illegal drug use. Most of the program's $30,000 in annual fundingcomes from Ontario.

"People are not going to stop using drugs because we eliminated crack pipes, but people are going to be more sick," Ball said.

Drug users and residents in Ottawa's Sandy Hill neighbourhood also believe people will still be using crack even when they can't get free crack pipes.

"If you can't find it one way, you're going to do it another," one drug user told CBC Radio's Evan Dyer.

But some users alsosuspected thatcrackvendorswilllose some of their profits now that the program has ended. They told Dyer that some dealersused to get box loads of free, city-issued crack pipes, pre-load them with a $2.50 hit of crack, and then sell them for $3.

Now, the users say they will go back to making their own crack pipes.

Andrew Gibbs, who lives on Daly Avenue and said he can see a drug deal from his window every 15 minutes,recalled thatbefore the crack pipe program started, he often found crushed cans in his driveway.

"So I guess if we don't have crack pipes, we're going to have crack cans back," he said.