Should London prohibit handing out publicly funded drug pipes in downtown neighbourhoods?

Coun. Susan Stevenson wants the city to prohibit municipally-funded groups from handing out safe-use drug pipes and materials. Bryan Bicknell reports.

A London city councillor wants to put a stop to the handing out of publicly funded drug pipes in downtown neighbourhoods.

“Every five minutes people are picking up pipes, stepping on them, they’re broken, they’re cleaning them up, they’re seeing people smoking them,” exclaimed Ward 4 councillor, Susan Stevenson.

She’s filed a motion to council’s Community and Protective Services Committee asking that publicly funded agencies be prohibited from handing out drug pipes (for crack or meth, for example), and other inhalation supplies downtown, mid-town, or in the Old East Village. She says it clashes with the goal of cracking down on open-air drug use.

“In the core area, where public drug use is being targeted for enforcement and trying to limit that, why would we be handing it out in the very spaces we’re saying we don’t want to see it,” she said.

The idea is garnering no shortage of attention. Sam Trosow, who sits on the CAPS committee, says he’s upset by his colleague’s approach to the issue.

“We have to be careful that we don’t take a knee-jerk reaction to things because they don’t look right. I want a much more evidence-based approach,” Trosow said.

The owner of Dough EV, located on Dundas Street in the Old East Village, concedes that discarded pipes and other drug paraphernalia are a problem. But Tara Davies, a former health care professional, also says she understands the need for harm reduction.

“Until we fix a lot of the larger systemic problems, harm reduction does work in reducing people getting sick,” Davies said.

According to London Cares, pipes and other inhalation equipment are handed out on weekends and evenings by outreach workers in the community as part of a harm reduction supply package.

The program is administered by the Middlesex London Health Unit, and funded mostly by the province.

Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Alex Summers, says there’s a difference between promoting drugs and enabling the safe use of drugs for those who are going to use anyway.

“There’s a theoretical and real risk at times of blood borne transmission through the use of shared pipes or other inhalation devices because of cracked lips and potential blood exposure. That is one of the reasons why safe inhalation supplies, from a medical perspective, have been part of the suite of options,” explained Dr. Summers.

The CAPS committee will consider Stevenson’s motion on Monday.