Crack smokers may have to go back to sharing their pipes again. According to the United Nations, the supply of safer alternative drug use for addicts is illegal.

In its annual report released on March 6, the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) denounced the distribution of free crack-pipe kits to drug addicts in Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa. According to the report, the crack-pipe programs violated a 1988 anti-drug trafficking agreement signed by Canada. The board also called for programs that provide safe drug injection sites under supervision to be shut down as well. The federal government was urged to scrap these programs.

The government funded crack-pipe programs are designed for harm reduction and to prevent the spread of hepatitis C and HIV. Sharing of contaminated equipment is common among crack smokers, putting them at a higher risk for blood-borne infections and sexually transmitted diseases. The kits distributed as part of the government programs supply crack smokers with a fresh rubber mouthpiece to prevent mouth burns that can lead to an infection. The kits also contain a glass crack pipe, filters, matches, push sticks and smoking instructions.

Ontario’s Liberal government has supported the crack-pipe programs from the get go. The province plans to provide $287,000 for the initiative regardless of Ottawa city council’s decision to thwart the program last summer, stripping the program of its annual $7,500 government funding. Ottawa Mayor Larry O’Brien and councillor Rick Chiarelli are still working to kill the program, refusing to believe the programs help reduce infectious diseases in the city, and saying it encourages illicit drug use instead.

The Ontario Health Ministry has pointed out that the INCB report severely contradicts another significant UN body: the World Health Organization, which supports evidence that the spread of hepatitis C and HIV could be curbed through the implementation of safer alternatives for drug use.

Despite the various crack pipe programs present across Ontario, the UN report pointed the finger at the “safer crack kits” provided by the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), which is not the first UN lashing Vancouver has gotten.

INCB made a similar call last year on Vancouver’s supervised safe injection facility, Insite, saying the program breached a 1961 treaty agreeing to pass laws that ensure the use of drugs for medical or scientific purposes only. However, Insite is operating under a medical research exemption from Health Canada, which protects drug addicts who use it from being prosecuted.

Despite the UN calls for closure, VIHA plans to continue its harm reduction operations, distributing safe crack pipe kits across Vancouver Island in April with funding from the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. The program was previously shut down in Nanaimo, British Columbia, when residents and city council were outraged after discovering the program had been going on for five months without their consultation.

VIHA medical health officer Murray Fyfe is not backing down from the city council or the UN. Fyfe said the UN criticisms are irrelevant to the progressive actions being taken to reduce the spread of hepatitis C and HIV. Research on Insite has shown that crimes and overdoses have been reduced and more addicts have been getting treatment. Top medical journals have suggested that safe injection sites have reduced blood-borne infections, while a University of Ottawa study showed that crack-pipe programs have caused many drug users to switch to smoking crack rather than the riskier method of cocaine injection. Not to mention, these programs take out less money from taxpayers’ pockets.

At the annual Canadian Medical Association meeting last year in August, federal health minister Tony Clement ignored the evidence from Insite‘s research that the harm reduction programs benefited drug users and deemphasized the importance of harm reduction. “Harm reduction, in a sense, takes many forms,” Clement said at the meeting. “To me, prevention is harm reduction. Treatment is harm reduction. Enforcement is harm reduction.”

This public disapproval of the harm reduction programs, from the UN monitoring body, now gives the Harper government a clear open doorway to finally eliminate these programs to which it has always objected. The INCB report has already sparked the government to review their policies on the harm reduction programs.

If the Tories decide to scrap these programs for good, then that only leaves one outlet to combat drug use in Canada: the three-pillar approach called the National Anti-Drug Strategy. The $63.8-million dollar strategy was introduced last October. Harper promised to enforce mandatory minimum prison terms for serious drug crimes. The strategy also includes treatment and prevention, but no harm reduction.

Canada’s previous drug strategy was heavily devoted to enforcement, which did nothing to treat addicts; the strategy failed to reduce illicit drug use. Seventy-three percent of the $368 million spent on reducing illegal drug use was spent on law enforcement in 2004-2005. Fourteen percent was spent on treatment while a mere 2.6 percent was spent on prevention and harm reduction. The new multi-million dollar anti-drug strategy will merely follow along the same path.

Prime Minister Harper has stated that harm reduction programs are useless. When he revealed the new anti-drug strategy, Harper had nothing but criticism for such programs. “I remain a skeptic that you can tell people we won’t stop the drug trade, we won’t get you off drugs, we won’t even send messages to discourage drug use, but somehow we will keep you addicted and yet reduce the harm just the same.”

Many advocates for crack-pipe programs and safe injection sites are concerned the new anti-drug strategy will veer in the wrong direction again, pushing aside harm reduction programs to make room for more law enforcement to take over. This is not an unlikely outcome since harm reduction, as Harper has stated, is not a “distinct pillar” in the Conservative strategy.

Harper’s “war on drugs” approach mirrors the U.S. approach to drug use. However, the U.S. campaign has shown no tangible progress in reducing illegal drug use, drug trafficking and production. Crime and punishment became the weapons of choice to combat drug use. The campaign totally overlooked harm reduction and prevention.

Some critics have claimed that the UN criticisms of Canada’s harm reduction programs are an attempt to make up for the failed U.S. attempts to prevent drug use. “The INCB report is driven more by a war on drugs ideology than the research and the scientific evidence that supports these as a public health intervention,” Richard Pearshouse, senior policy analyst of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, told the Canadian Press.

The targeting of Canadian health programs by the UN reinforces the war on drugs propaganda, overlooking the research and health benefits of the countryâe(TM)s harm reduction programs. Regardless of the UN’s request to end these programs, the Ontario Health Ministry is adamant about ensuring the health of drug users first and foremost before following an international drug control treaty signed nearly 20 years ago.