LOS ANGELES — Are you a junkie in Skid Row who just got a bag of crack or fentanyl, but have no pipe to smoke it in?
Don’t worry: local nonprofit organizations will hand you a brand-new crack pipe free of charge.
Just look for the door that says “Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles,” where addicts line up for free needles, glass pipes, smoking foils and other accessories to help them get high.
Homeless Healthcare LA is one of several organizations in California that give smoking accessories to anyone who wants them. That’s despite critics asserting there is no direct medical evidence that crack pipe giveaways stop the spread of disease.
And addicts told The Post that the free crack pipes help them afford more drugs to feed their habit.
During a recent visit to LA’s notorious Skid Row slum, The Post witnessed around a dozen people gathered outside Homeless Healthcare, most clutching matching glass pipes, which they all said were handed out by the organization.
Some stuffed them with fentanyl and lit up in broad daylight as volunteers ushered more people into the center.
Others, like Amiya Johnson, who lives on the street in Skid Row with his dog, kept them to sell or trade for more drugs.
“A lot of people trade this stuff for drugs when they get it,” Johnson said.
“Yeah, I sell ‘em,” his neighbor in line quipped, adding that he sells every glass pipe from the center for $2.
Danion Corral, who visits Homeless Healthcare most days, said he would still visit its Skid Row center even if it didn’t give out pipes.
Homeless Healthcare – which offers free coffee, snacks, rides to the doctor’s office and other services – would be a “haven of peace” for him and fellow addicts.
“This is the only place I can go to and get treated like a human being,” Corral said.
But, he said, the free swag helps him feed his habit — so it’s a big bonus.
The money he saves from the drug paraphernalia handouts – either from not having to buy new pipes, or from selling the ones the organization gives him – goes directly towards buying more drugs, Corral said.
“They don’t give them to us to sell, but some people do,” he said.
The nonprofits handing out the pipes say it’s about “harm reduction” — effectively an “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach to the drug crisis.
Typically, harm reduction is associated with things like needle exchanges, which are meant to stop the spread of blood-borne diseases like HIV and Hepatitis C transmitted via contaminated syringes.
But you can’t get those diseases from saliva, said Michael Wright, who directs the homeless medicine program for the nonprofit Lestonnac Free Clinic in Orange County.
“There’s no purpose in giving someone a new glass pipe. The old glass pipe works just fine. He’s not going to pass disease. It’s not like a needle,” Wright said.
Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles did not respond to requests for comment.
There is some research that supports crack pipe handouts, proponents say. A survey by the Harm Reduction Journal found that homeless people tend to be healthier in communities with “safe smoking” programs.
But many safe smoking programs – including those funded by the federal government – do not provide the pipes themselves, but things like cleaning wipes and rubber mouth guards.
“With needle exchanges, there’s more research about health and safety concerns. … The science [behind free crack pipes] is not well defined,” said Ian Kemmer, director of behavioral health for the public Orange County Health Care Agency.
OC Health Care has invested heavily in harm reduction – sans the free crack pipes.
Instead, the agency focuses on providing overdose prevention drugs like Naloxone and Narcan, as well as community engagement and education.
Michael Wright, the street medicine advocate, believes you can ease the burden of homeless addicts without helping them smoke fentanyl.
“There is no safe way to smoke drugs. Nothing about giving addicts the tools to use drugs is ‘reducing harm,’” Wright said.
The floodgates opened for harm reduction funding during the pandemic, when overdose deaths among California’s homeless hit crisis levels.
In LA County, more than 1,500 homeless people died of overdoses between 2020 and 2021, with more than half of them testing positive for fentanyl, pushing the county to increase its harm reduction budget from $5.1 million to $31.5 over the next few years, according to the LA Times.
The Times reported that a portion of that money pays for free crack pipes.
But waiting in line outside Homeless Healthcare, Corral wasn’t thinking about whether the free paraphernalia would help him in the long run.
He was just there for a coffee, a hot cup of instant noodles, and a shiny new crack pipe – for better or worse.
“It makes the dope fiend happy,” he said. “If I have to buy that stuff, I wouldn’t have as much money for dope, which would make a very unhappy dope fiend.”
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