Guide to shooting smack published by City of New York

The City of New York spent $32,000 on 70,000 16-page fliers showing how to safely inject street drugs. If this campaign saves one life, it's a bargain. The experts that the NY Post selected to be quoted in its article don't seem to agree, however. Most favor the abstinence-only approach.

"What we do not want to do is suggest that there's anything safe about shooting up narcotics," said [Bridget] Brennan, the city's special narcotics prosecutor. "No matter how many times you wash your hands or how clean the needle is, it's still poison that you're putting in your veins."

In other words, make drug use as dirty, dangerous, and illegal as possible.

UPDATE: Boing Boing reader haineux posted the link to a PDF of the pamphlet. Haineux wrote:

For those that can't read it, the pamphlet includes: 
• Pointers to resources and other info for quitting 
• Commonsense info to avoid ODing 
• What to do if someone ODs 
• How to avoid getting AIDS and Hepatitis 
• Commonsense info to avoid other problems
It does not contain step by step instructions on how to use drugs, and the accompanying drawings are unlikely to be confused with glamorizing the lifestyle.

Heroin for dummies

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Phlip

maybe wall-to-wall Ad Council public service announcements screaming “get hooked!” would lead to total abstinence
nanuq

“(Oh, and note to any busybodies out there – cannabis itself is not physically addicting, so in theory you can then go drug-free with no withdrawal symptoms at all.)”

Just because a drug isn’t physically addictive doesn’t make it safe. The risk of psychological dependance can be just as bad.
- Phlip
  
  “…the risk of psychological dependence can be just as bad.”
  
  Oh, I know! I had to go out and get a full-time job to support my habit!..
- MrJM
  
  “The risk of psychological dependance can be just as bad.”
  
  B.S.
Clay

There is always a fine line between harm reduction and legitimizing a bad lifestyle choice. If this guide includes help on where to go to try to get clean, it is the former; if it does not it is the latter.
Monkeybaister

“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Brainspore

Anyone have stats on what the NYC Health Department spends each year on antiviral drugs for HIV/AIDS patients? Maybe it would shut up a few of the “not with MY tax dollars!” crowd.
Anonymous

Saying that any junkie is lower than one of you is wrong. I cannot speak for those i do not know but I was addicted to my pain medication at the age of 13 and from then on it was DOWN HILL. Yeah we lie we steal, we fuck, we fuck ourselves in the end, but is there any demographic group you can exclude from lying stealing and ruining there lives? It’s like the condom comment that i read above, do u really think there would be any room for your children if all hookers and street people never used condoms and there was even more pointless breeding and disease sharing?

That’s not the point. Nobody wants to be singled out in the way that they live act ext… No junkie woke up in the morning before they where addicted and wanted to watch everything they know slowly rot out before their eyes and not one of them enjoyed seeing themselves lie to their parents their siblings their children spouses just so they could avoid the pain or whatever they had been running from then realize what they had done, felt bad then do it again. It’s insanity. It’s not a disease of the weak it’s a socio economic trend that does not explain the extreme consequences that accompany it.

By the way most junkies (Start at)are between the ages of 18 and 25 and mostly are suburban white kids. I think that they DO NEED a how to on shooting drugs. I was educated in this manor and passed on clean shooting to everybody who would listen, i shot along side people who had AIDS and Hep C but never once shared a needle a cooker a cotton. Hence never got the disease. If everyone was educated like this as soon as possible, i know that anyone who didn’t want to get HIV or Hep wouldn’t. I’m glad there are exchanges where anyone can get a clean set and drop off their dirty needles. And i am happy that NY is educating the public the way they are, because it could be your child who picks up a dirty rig on the ground and tries to play doctor with it, or your 13 year old who tries it and never stops. I grew up in a good home with money my mother was a psycho therapist and my father a teacher…it CAN happen.
13tales

On a tangent – this Boing Boing article may be unreadable in Australia in 10 months time! Hurrah!

http://nocleanfeed.com/
mtreighie

They must be making dummies a whole lot smarter these days. I’ve read the pamphlet (http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/basas/drug_use_take_care.pdf for those who want to do the same). Not a step by step guide at all.

I am fairly sure I am going to screw something up when I finally get around to shooting up for the first time.
michaelannb

The strategy is called harm reduction and it covers the territory that’s left after abstinence. It may seem ironic to promote safe drug use strategies in a city that has banned smoking, and yet I wonder if any of the smoking cessation materials put out by the health department talk about how to smoke LESS– in other words, reduce the harm. If not, they should. The “all or nothing” mindset is a recipe for failure for most drug users.
- Anonymous
  
  Exactly! Promoting harm reduction at the federal level was scuttled under Clinton, and what a public health travesty that was. It is in all of our interests that IV drug users learn to not share their needles (to reduce HIV spread which is HIGH in their group), not toss their needles into the street (“think about the children!” fits here), nor ignore opportunities for help (which fear of arrest gets them now).
Bouillion Cube

Great article last week in the NYT about the ARA – “Ayn Rand Assholes”. An ARA would say, “I’d like to support health education for junkies, but then they might live longer. So you can see my dilemma.”
murrayhenson

Alcohol is a poison, too. If you don’t believe me, down 500 ml of vodka right now and then call your local emergency services people and hope the paramedics or hospital has a stomach pump.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,523106,00.html

PS: I realize the person in this article downed 1000 ml but you probably don’t need that much to do the job.

PPS: I don’t really advocate this but I also think it’s f’in stupid to call heroin a poison while ignoring how a fairly small amount of something else also available for very little money almost everywhere is perfectly legal.
sirkowski

I approve of this AND of dope fiends overdosing.
Patrick Austin

Would it be stating the obvious to note that a lot of IV drug users do so without their sexual partners having any fucking clue what they’re up to? If this stops ten junkies from catching HIV, it will probably stop another ten non-junkies from catching it.
Brainspore

Because Junkies are generally well-read and pay attention to warnings…?

Maybe not generally, but the campaign only has to work 1/70,000th of the time to be cost-effective.
Anonymous

So they throw money at this but won’t fund non-abstinence sex education. To do something that almost everyone does at least once, as opposed to shoot up heroin which most people don’t do. huh.
_OM_

…Thankfully, we diabetics don’t have to go through hunting for a vein. Gut, inner thigh or shoulder muscle all work just fine with a straight-in plunge.
bkad

of course! I cannot tell you how often I “Just say n..” oh. Wait.. Well, as you well know; no teenager has ever… uh..

We were all taught ‘just say no’ when we were in school, too. In my case… it never came up. I don’t think I experienced peer pressure ever, to do anything, not in middle school or high school. Unfortunately the ‘correct’ interpretation of that is that I was just oblivious to pressure to do any of the right things, and suffered the consequences, without knowing why, of having few friends and not getting invited to any parties. On the plus side: I never was tempted by or even witnessed any illegal drug use or underaged drinking. Easy to stay sober and clean if you don’t know there’s anything else possible. When my sister went though the same thing just a few years later, I learned it was like a totally different world than what I experienced.
- tizroc
  
  Mine was kind of similar and dis-similar. Odd.. I was a 4 year letterman.. mr clean jeans.. etc… etc…. but in my junior year I started dating this evil little vixen. Needless to say she wasn’t in my social circles, which were pretty damn pressure free. Sure I had a “Hey wanna?” a few times, but there was no hard sell and no pressure.
  
  Then came “her”. Of course I didn’t say no to the first option. Then as we dated longer and I met more people in her social circle it became very obvious that hers and mine were literally Mars and Venus. Dope, Sex, Alcohol parties galore. Derogatory comments and massive peer pressure for those who didn’t partake, or who didn’t partake enough. This was girl who I had known since 5th grade, so it was very strange how these two worlds had stayed so close together yet never touch.
Inne

Years ago, 1990, I was a volunteer at ‘Perron Nul’ (platform zero) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perron_Nul (dutch wikipedia), in Rotterdam just next to the central train station. We took care for drug addicts and gave them a safe haven without judging their behaviour. I soon became a hot spot for all addicts in europe, and since then it went backwards and the city had to stop the project.
At that time we also made a leaflet for all the foreign guests to help then act safely. If you like, I tried to remake it (all of my digital documents where out-of-date).

http://www.darwine.nl/weblog/downloads/spuitfolder.pdf

It was quite controversial at that time, but most professionals active with drug related issues liked it.
haineux

The BoingBoing article really should have included the URL to the complete pamphlet, which someone posted above:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/basas/drug_use_take_care.pdf

For those that can’t read it, the pamphlet includes:
â€¢Â Pointers to resources and other info for quitting
â€¢ Commonsense info to avoid ODing
â€¢ What to do if someone ODs
â€¢ How to avoid getting AIDS and Hepatitis
â€¢ Commonsense info to avoid other problems

It does not contain step by step instructions on how to use drugs, and the accompanying drawings are unlikely to be confused with glamorizing the lifestyle.
- Lady Katey
  
  Thank you for posting this. I hope BoingBoing update their link. I came across this pamphlet earlier today on the Smoking Gun. I don’t consider it ‘wonderful’ nor do I think it condones drug use. It just reminds us all that shooting dope is complicated business.
- tizroc
  
  Haineux,
  
  Thank you for the additional link, very appreciated.
  
  usonia,
  
  I have to disagree with you, although I understand your point. Those people don’t value morality, if they did then they would be helping these people far more. These are the superiority complexed Sunday Christians, and their ilk of my shit don’t stink storm troopers. If they were really Christians they would be doing everything they could to assist the down trodden, and the lambs that have gone astray to bring them back into a loving fold. The problem is that the club mentality has set in and their elitist club doesn’t want “their kind” in their nest of Gods eternal love and forgiveness.
  
  There is nothing more beautiful than seeming people practice what they preach.
  â€œTo believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.â€ Mahatma Gandhi
greengestalt

It’s been proven that the real “Damage” an illegal drug does comes far more from it being an illegal substance than any abuse of it if or rather when it was legalized. Simply put, the same number of hardcore addicts will be that way regardless the laws and culture. Placing laws to try to force them not to choose wrong adds cost and complication on top of the problem.
AirPillo

Sadly it’s her job to destroy lives, not save them.
trippcook

Can’t you be pro-drug legalization (I have no issue with anyone using illegal drugs, so long as they don’t harm anyone else in the process) and ALSO think the pamphlets are a retarded waste of money? Why is it the legalizers / “open-minded” folks all think this is a great idea, and the “Just Say No” crowd hates it?

I’m a big-time legalizer, and I think this is the most ridiculous use of taxpayer dollars I’ve seen in at least a day. Maybe two! The people who are most at risk for these kinds of infections and ODs are the exact kind of junkies who will never, ever, ever read or give a shit about something like this. And I’ve worked rehab, I’ve worked with addicts, I’m not just some dude on the internet. Yeah, high functioning users that aren’t consumed totally by their habits may get some use out of this, but that population is ALREADY incredibly low-risk. I’d be completely shocked if even one at-risk person is actually helped by this bullshit.
- Brainspore
  
  I’m a big-time legalizer, and I think this is the most ridiculous use of taxpayer dollars I’ve seen in at least a day.
  
  Considering the cost of a lifetime of HIV/AIDS medications, I’d say the money is a worthwhile gamble even if it only has a partial chance of preventing a single infection.
  
  Yeah, high functioning users that aren’t consumed totally by their habits may get some use out of this, but that population is ALREADY incredibly low-risk.
  
  Then by your own admission they may now be even lower-risk. So what’s the problem? Hundreds of billions are spent fighting the War on Drugs and you’re complaining about a few thousand spent on something which even you admit may make things better?
jeligula

No advice on skin-popping or alternate injection sites. No instructions for cooking. This is not a step by step guide. People need to remember that this is something that takes practice. Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking that today is the day that I slam street drugs. Chances are they have already been involved for a while and understand what the drug does. They just want it done faster and heavier. What this really amounts to is a basic hygiene primer to prevent infections and hopefully reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis. Nothing wrong with that. When they start offering free dope in the basements of churches, then people should start worrying about priorities and the usage of tax dollars.
tinyhonkshus

I have a friend who used to use and is in the hospital right now because he got a blood clot from a nurse drawing blood incorrectly from that vein. Timely.
teapot

“No matter how many times you wash your hands or how clean the needle is, it’s still poison that you’re putting in your veins.”

Bridget Brennan: Love the lies…. Mainline drugs can only be described as poison because their illegal status means the production is often done under non-ideal circumstances.

If they are produced under controlled circumstances, with the correct precursor substances, then illicit drugs are only as harmful as a lot of the crap you can get legally with a prescription. More fun, and much more potential for addiction and abuse, but still just drugs.

Don’t lie, cos you will just get called on it and look stupid. I can’t believe they are still trying to push this distinction between the drugs they say are OK and they ones they say aren’t. I’ll make that choice for myself, thankyou very much, but unfortunately the stupid masses often swallow their BS – hook, line & sinker.
- dw_funk
  
  “I can’t believe they are still trying to push this distinction between the drugs they say are OK and they ones they say aren’t.”
  
  I’ve seen alcoholics and heroin addicts both, and there doesn’t seem to be much distinction; heroin is more dangerous only because it’s highly illegal. But there’s a legitimate reason to call a drug “bad” versus a drug that’s “good.” Alcohol may be legal and heroin illegal, but either can make you an ugly and unhealthy individual. In this case, an educational pamphlet only makes sense; it’s just like handing out cards about alcohol poisoning to college freshmen.
  
  Tangentially, the pamphlets are extremely cost effective. If it saves even a handful of lives or keeps just a few people from overdosing or getting HIV, the entire campaign is paid for by keeping poor addicts out of the emergency room or off city-sponsored subsidized HIV treatment.
jjasper

“No matter how many times you wash your hands or how clean the needle is, it’s still poison that you’re putting in your veins.”

So they’re dead already, as far as she’s concerned? This same excuse is used for people who don’t want to distribute free condoms to streetwalkers. Selling sex is bad, so anything that’s done to make it safer for the people who’re doing it is just as bad as selling or buying it.

Can we get a professional ethics scholar to deconstruct how fecking stupid that argument is
Anonymous

I just learned how to shoot street drugs.
Anonymous

I second that motion. I am an extremely well-read (in English and Russian), junkie… well, ex-junkie now : ) as of the past 2 -3 months, I’ve been going to a methadone maintenance treatment center. Does it work for me? Well, I just started graduate school, hoping to get my masters in Management of Information Systems, and I have a job so… Of course I miss the needle… and the dope, so sometimes I have been known to inject something that I am prescribed to – amphetamines, just to give that needle monkey one more scratch behind the ear… Yet the last time I attempted to inject heroin, it was of inferior quality, and that’s what I get for jumping off the wagon.
And yes, I support those booklets – I myself always tried to take meticulous care of my veins, however when shooting cocaine it went to extremes sometimes – dull needles, using same spot over and over, etc. All things I’m happy to have put behind me.

peace and love == woo sarcasm, or not?
btw, great job quoting the Lou Reed song -0 used to love shooting speedballs with that song on re[peat, the ringing in the song melted so well with the cocaine riniging in my ears
Larskydoodle

Back in 2001, the Harm Reduction Coalition published a similar pamplet, called “H is for Heroin,” which is likely the inspiration for this publication.

You can check out the PDF of the pamplet.

http://harm.live.radicaldesigns.org/downloads/heroin.pdf
strangefriend

This article got me interested in shooting heroin. So I bought some, & then shot the baggie with my pistol. Nothing. I emptied the pistol, but still . . nada. Is it just me?
Anonymous

Reminds me of a Bleach Man bilboard.
Anonymous

Do the opponents think that the flyer campaign will actually inspire new heroin users? Perhaps they need education on the complex causes of drug use, abuse and addiction.

The opponents simply don’t give a fuck that their plan leads to more injury and disease. What they care about is presenting themselves as unimpeachable authority figures. Compromise and harm reduction is for pussies.
Bloodboiler

Somehow I doubt heroin users are the kind of people who are that interested in their health.
- hassan-i-sabbah
  
  Bloodboiler -Don’t be a pointless troll.or try not to be thick.
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  That’s an extraordinarily uninformed opinion. One of my best friends is a former heroin user. He’s been clean for twenty years and now has a wife and kids. By the time he was eight years old, he was trading blowjobs for vodka shots from the man that his parents designated as his guardian. He became a smack addict and prostitute in his teens. He got cleaned up and now has a life. Unfortunately he also has chronic hepatitis from shared needles and will spend the rest of his life on the liver transplant list waiting to see if he goes into total liver failure.
  - tizroc
    
    100% agree. I happen to know a recovering addict who has 18 years clean. Wife, kids and works as a professional in the IT industry, including government work on High Side servers (Government speak for Top Secret data storage servers). When he was doing drugs he was health conscious, vegetarian who worked out three times a week. What one might have called him a functional addict. People who say things like “I doubt heroin users are the kind of people who are that interested in their health.” have not experienced people in this situation, or lack the empathy to realize these are people too.
apoxia

Do the opponents think that the flyer campaign will actually inspire new heroin users? Perhaps they need education on the complex causes of drug use, abuse and addiction.
Anonymous

First in a long series focusing on how to defeat Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest. Next up, how to safely cross a freeway during rush hour traffic.
- usonia
  
  Condoms for hookers, sex ed for kids, clean needles (or in this case, instruction) for junkies: these things save money & help society in the long run, and offend the kind of dim assholes who value morality over basic (if flawed) human nature.
Anonymous

It’s called harm reduction. People are going to have sex and take drugs. No sense in them getting pregnant or getting diseases like hepatitis or HIV from doing these things. Abstinence-only teaching is ignorant and cruel. It is the equivalent of saying: do exactly what I want you to do or suffer the consequences.
mortis

Because Junkies are generally well-read and pay attention to warnings…?

For $32k it’s a pittance, but still pretty hilarious.
- paradoxcycle
  
  Because Junkies are generally well-read and pay attention to warnings…?
  
  @mortis: I’m a recovering heroin user who is very-well read and I managed to avoid contracting infections and disease by heeding warnings and following sterile procedure. Additionally, I consider myself to be extremely knowledgeable regarding pharmaceuticals/medicine as a result as well.
mneptok

When the smack begins to flow,
Then I really don’t care anymore,
About all the Jim-Jims in this town.
And everybody putting everybody else down.
And all of the politicians makin’ crazy sounds.
All the dead bodies piled up in mounds.
Yeah.

- Lou Reed – Heroin
taj1f

I understand the “save a life/avoid infection” angle, but I hope the flipside prominently features scary drug facts and want to quit? contact info.
Half_Fast

That’s one hell of a bargain in printing costs. I hope this helps slow down the spread of Hep/Strep/AIDS.
Avram / Moderator

I support this use of four-tenths of a penny of my city tax dollars.
MrJM

“make drug use as dirty, dangerous, and illegal as possible.”

How else can we ever hope to win the War on Drugsâ„¢?
Aurini

Wait a minute – this sensible, effective, relatively inexpensive solution to opiate abuse occurred in the same city whose mayor banned cigarettes, transfats, cookies, soda, and Christmas? A man who was elected as ReasonTV’s Nanny of the Year? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AitHxiOGSs

Does not compute. :S
- Moriarty
  
  That’s not a contradiction if you realize that both things like this and things like banning trans fats are just pragmatism-over-all approaches to public health. One sacrifices the idealism of freedom to eat crap to the pragmatic goal of a healthier population, the other sacrificies the idealism of “just say no.”
Ocker3

Clay #16, read the first few pages of the pamphlet, steps 9 and 10 are:

9. Get Help for Depression
10. Ask for Help to Stop Using
CANTFIGHTTHEDITE

Are “abstinence only” programs ever effective at reducing their respective target activities in their target audience?
- tizroc
  
  of course! I cannot tell you how often I “Just say n..” oh. Wait.. Well, as you well know; no teenager has ever… uh..
  
  Okay, maybe I cannot think of a single instance where it has worked, ever… but just because there is no proof doesn’t mean people don’t believe in it. (grin)
  - CANTFIGHTTHEDITE
    
    Haha, so true.
    
    I suppose an abstinence only program for abstinence only programs wouldn’t be very effective either. So much for the “Just say no to abstinence only programs!” posters I just printed.
artaxerxes

Most junkies aren’t in love with their habits or their using lives. All will get free of the habit through either multiple attempts at rehab or death from ODs, medical issues or the violence associated with the black market.

But they will continue to use until then. Offering them no bullshit, medically-reliable harm reduction information will keep them as safe as their lifestyle allows while minimizing the spread of disease and the health-problems associated with injecting.

I don’t have figures to assess the cost of publishing guides and offering safe injection supplies through needle exchange programs, but I will guess that they’re far lower than the cost of treating the medical problems borne of ignorance and lack of resources. Obviously, the average non-functional junkie who lacks practically all resources will be treated at the tax payer’s expense.

What’s widely considered the gold standard of harm-reduction injection guides is available through The Harm Reduction Coalition. It can be found here: http://www.harmreduction.org/downloads/idu_manual.pdf

It does include information on prepping a shot, cleaning the injection spot, rotating injection sites and the actual process of injecting itself. The guide includes information for IV users of meth, powder coke, crack and heroin. It offers information and advice on abcesses, missed shots, artery shots, ODs, etc. It’s saved a lot of lives and helped a lot of junkies stay healthy so they can live well after they’ve gotten clean. It’s very matter-of-fact, and free of patronizing attitudes and Christian/moral judgment.

In my opinion that’s tax dollars well-spent. If you find appropriate locations to post the link, please do. Or if, unfortunately, some of your friends or family are fighting the battle, please share this info with them. I’ve known junkies with 10 year habits who’ve got healthy arms and legs because early on they were educated properly in harm reduction. And yeah, I’ve lost more than enough friends to heroin, but I still have some around after their junk careers and I’m grateful to the people who put so much energy, knowledge and love into harm reduction.
Phlip

If heroin users would like to abstain, they can use cannabis to ease the nausea. This works exactly the same as with other nauseas. You can kick the habit

(Oh, and note to any busybodies out there – cannabis itself is not physically addicting, so in theory you can then go drug-free with no withdrawal symptoms at all.)
- Gilbert Wham
  
  I would like to point out to you that a lot Heroin users and ex-users (myself included) find cannabis quite unpleasant – Burroughs, indeed, waxes on this point. Don’t know why, but it seems to be the case. I still can’t smoke the stuff even 15+ years later. Hate it.
  
  Apropos the leaflet, a Manchester-based drugs awareness group called S.I.T.E. used to produce similar material in an underground comix style – I’m sure it helped a lot of people not to lethally fuck up. Including myself. More power to them.
- woodbutcher420
  
  There is also a natural plant that is used in rituals in africa and has been used in mexico canada the netherlands and many other places that can detox a person from opiates in 24-36 hrs with no withdrawl syptoms. it will however require some counseling and follow up to help from relapsing. the plant is called the IBOGA PLANT its root is a very powerful hallucigen and the substance is called ibogaine look it up if your serious about detox w/o withdrawl . Un fortunatly and not suprisingly the US dea have had it declared illegal in the us but there are people here that can help find it and it is readly aval in canada so dont be dicouraged by the DEA’s B.S. they probably just dont like loosing customers to sobriety
- Phlip
  
  Maybe someone should put THAT on a flyer…
ben

I’m apparently too squeamish to be a junky.
anansi133

Right, it’s not as if drug users are actual citizens or anything. Let city officials pick and choose which people they are supposed to serve, and which people are undesirables.

…and then expect to see T-shirts with the slogan, “I shoot heroin- and I vote”