Crack pipe providers could lose funding: Ottawa councillor

Groups that continue to hand out crack pipes to Ottawa drug users despite city council's decision to end a distribution program can expect a rough ride at budget time, a councillor warns.

"As far as I'm concerned, any organization that will be using that as a tool to give out to our kids I will vote against giving any funding to them,"Orlans Coun. Bob Monette told CBC News on Thursday.

"We made it very clear at council meeting that city council does not support handing out crack pipes."

The crack pipe program, started in 2005, provides free, clean, rubber-tipped glass tubes to crack users. It was intended to reduce the incidence of HIV and hepatitis spread through the sharing of homemade crack pipes.

The city-run program cost $30,000 a year, but Ottawa was only paying $7,500 annually, with the rest covered by the province. However, city council voted 15-7 on July 11 to cancel to the program.

After Monette's warning, community groups who are partners in the program such as the Ottawa HIV/AIDS Coalition said they are determined to keep handing out the pipes.

"Our legal advice is that there is no problem in distributing these safer inhalation devices," said Ron Chaplin, the chair of the coalition.

"We regard these as medical devices in the same way that a syringe is a medical device and we've been distributing syringes to drug users in this community for many years now."

Nevertheless, the groups are taking Monette's threat seriously, said Kathleen Cummings, the director of the AIDS Committee of Ottawa, which gets more than $50,000 from the city each year.

She said the cancellation of the crack pipe program will lead to an increase in HIV infection in Ottawa, and that means her group's services will be needed more than ever.

"I think they should be expanding our services," she said at a public forum on the crack pipe program Thursday night.

Crack pipe distribution by the city is to stop at the end of July.