Police chief urges review of scrapped crack pipe program

An Ottawa program that hands out free crack pipes to addicts to reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis C should be reviewed even though city council voted to end the program Wednesday, says the city's police chief.

"I was fully committed and still am fully committed to seeing a review of the program, because I know so little about it and I'm not an expert in this area," Chief Vern White said Wednesday after council's decision.

The matter is too important to be guided by his own and others' gut feeling that handing out crack pipes is wrong, White said, adding that the review should look at the medical impact of the program as well as whether the program encourages drug use.

The motion to cancel the program was brought forward by Coun. Rick Chiarelli, who argued that it sends mixed messages by helping addicts use an illegal substance.

Ottawa's medical officer of health, David Salisbury, said theprogram cancellationwas a case of politicians following their gut in the wrong direction.

"These programs are very hard for people to understand and very hard to reconcile with people's gut feeling," he said.

"That's why these decisions are generally left to the professionals to make them.

Salisbury argued that the program's goal is to prevent people from getting infected with HIV and hepatitis C through the sharing of crack pipes, and it has been successful in that regard.