Free crack pipes for addicts on LA’s Skid Row

LOS ANGELES – Are you a junkie on Skid Row who just got a bag of crack or fentanyl but doesn’t have a pipe to smoke?

Don’t worry: local nonprofits will give you a brand new crack pipe for free.

Just look for the door marked “Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles,” where addicts line up to receive free needles, glass pipes, smoking wraps and other supplies to help them get high.

Homeless Healthcare LA is one of several organizations in California that gives away smoking supplies to anyone who wants them. This is despite critics claiming that there is no direct medical evidence that crack pipe gifts stop the spread of disease.

And addicts told the Post that the free crack pipes would help them afford more drugs to support their addiction.

On a recent visit to L.A.’s notorious Skid Row slum, the Post observed about a dozen people gathered outside Homeless Healthcare, most holding matching glass pipes that they all said had been distributed by the organization.

Some filled them with fentanyl and set them on fire in broad daylight as volunteers led more people into the center.

Others, like Amiya Johnson, who lives on the streets in Skid Row with her 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.

“Yes, I sell them,” his neighbor in line joked, adding that he sells each glass pipe from the center for $2.

Danion Corral, who attends Homeless Healthcare Most days, he said he would visit the Skid Row center even when whistles weren’t being handed out.

Homeless Healthcare — which offers free coffee, snacks, rides to the doctor’s office and other services — would be a “sanctuary of peace” for him and other addicts.

“This is the only place I can go and be treated like a human being,” Corral said.

But, he said, the free gift helps him kick his habit – so it’s a big bonus.

The money he saves by distributing drug paraphernalia — either because he doesn’t have to buy new pipes or because he sells the pipes the organization gives him — goes directly toward 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” — essentially an “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em” approach to fighting the drug crisis.

Typically, harm reduction is associated with things like needle replacement, intended to stop the spread of blood-borne diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, which are transmitted through contaminated syringes.

But you can’t get these diseases through saliva, said Michael Wright, who runs the homeless medicine program at the nonprofit Lestonnac Free Clinic in Orange County.

“There is no point in giving someone a new glass pipe. The old glass pipe works perfectly. He will not endure illness. It’s not like a needle,” Wright said.

Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles did not respond to requests for comment.

There is some research to support the distribution of crack pipes, advocates say. A Harm Reduction Journal survey found that homeless people in communities with “safe smoking” programs tend to be healthier.

But many safe smoking programs — including those funded by the federal government — provide not the pipes themselves, but rather things like cleaning wipes and rubber mouth guards.

“With needle exchanges, there is more research into health and safety concerns. …The science [behind free crack pipes] is not well defined,” said Ian Kemmer, director of behavioral health for the Orange County Public Health Department.

OC Health Care has invested heavily in harm reduction – without the free crack pipes.

Instead, the agency focuses on providing overdose prevention medications such as Naloxone and Narcan, as well as community engagement and education.

Michael Wright, the street medicine advocate, believes you can ease the burden on homeless people without helping them smoke fentanyl.

“There is no safe way to smoke drugs. Nothing about giving addicts the tools to use drugs does anything to reduce the harm,” Wright said.

The floodgates for funding for harm reduction efforts opened during the pandemic as overdose deaths among homeless people in California reached crisis levels.

In L.A. 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 in the next few years .5 million to raise the LA Times.

The Times reported that some of that money will go toward free crack pipes.

But Corral, waiting in line at Homeless Healthcare, didn’t think about whether the free supplies would help him in the long run.

He was just there for coffee, a hot cup of instant noodles, and a shiny new crack pipe—for better or for worse.

“It makes the drug addict happy,” he said. “If I had to buy the stuff, I wouldn’t have as much money to spend on drugs, which would make a very unhappy drug addict.”