This is good for the economy.
You hire a street person to smoke crack, hire a social worker to pass out the pipes, you’ve created two jobs.
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.
Danion Corral
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.
What a beautiful city.
America truly is the best freedoms.
God bless our democracy.