COVID-19 Harm Reduction Tips for People Who Use Drugs:
Don’t Use Alone:
Using while isolated greatly increases your risk of fatal overdose. If you need to use while alone, consider calling a friend or relative to act as a drug spotter over the phone. Make sure to give them your location first. You can also use apps like Lifeguard or BeSafe to get connected with a spotter.
Drug Checking at Home:
Fentanyl test strips are used to test for the presence of fentanyl within a substance and can be used at home or outside of an OPS site. It’s not a perfect test – it won’t tell you the concentration of fentanyl or the other substances in your drugs – and we recommend that you follow other harm reduction tips too (ex. start low, go slow; never use alone; and, get checked at an OPS site). You can get trained and pick up test strips from approved VCH sites, like HIM’s Davie St Health Centre.
Avoid Sharing:
Pipes, bongs, vapes or joints, nasal tubes and all injecting equipment including: sterilized water, cookers, filters, wipes, ties, etc. Sharing increases your risk of illness. If you come into direct contact with someone else’s salvia, you may be at risk for COVID-19.
On Opioid Agonist Therapy?
If you are on OAT, ask your doctor if you can get an extended prescription for 1 month. Ask if you can skip appointments and urine testing for at least one month.
Stock-up on Drug-using Equipment/Materials:
Get enough to last you at least 3-4 weeks (longer if you are high risk for infection and if programs can manage it), this includes Naloxone.
Develop a Safety Plan:
If you plan to stock up on substances (including alcohol) to avoid withdrawal, develop a safety plan with a trusted friend, relative, or partner to make sure that you don’t binge on your substances. Do you need to portion out your substances? Leave them with a partner? Record the amount you use per hour or day?
Binging could lead to a fatal overdose or it may leave you feeling dopesick tomorrow.
Remind yourself why you stocked up: not for a party today, but to last you the next few weeks.
Be Prepared to Go Through Involuntary Withdrawal:
If your supplier(s) get sick, have back-up plans and make sure you have all the necessary medications, food and drinks you will need to detox off opiates. Similar steps can be taken by those with habit to other drugs.
Wash Your Hands:
With soap and hot water vigorously for at least 20 seconds (but longer if you can) every time you come into contact with others, after handling money and after you get your drugs. Paper towels are preferred for drying hands, or at least use a clean towel.
Avoid Putting Drug Bags/Wraps in Your Mouth, Vagina or Anus:
If you must carry it in your body, clean vigorously with an alcohol-based cleanser both before you put it in and after you take it out. If carried in your mouth, use an alcohol-based mouthwash afterwards.
Immune Response:
Substance use affects your body’s immune system and puts you at a greater risk during the covid-19 health crisis. Caring for your health is especially critical now to avoid becoming sick.
Smoking and Lung Health:
Smokers need to be aware COVID-19 can make it difficult or painful to inhale smoke or vapour. If you become unable to smoke heroin and you don’t inject, this leaves 3 options:
- Snort it: chop the powder finely and sniff it up your nose slowly using a tube
- UYB: dissolve brown heroin with citric or ascorbic acid, and draw it into a syringe – with no needle – and slowly squirt it Up Your Bum into your rectum
- Swallow it: this means the heroin will go via your liver before it reaches your brain, resulting in a morphine-like effect – but it also stops withdrawals
Buying Drugs
When your dealer visits you at your home: Protect yourself with at least a mask when you meet your dealer at the door/in your hallway, and stay at least 6 feet away from them whenever possible. After your dealer leaves, you can then pick up the packages, clean them with an alcohol-based sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol) – or transfer the drugs to another bag/container – and then wash your hands for at least 20 seconds.
Avoid getting into cars or any other small, confined spaces when you meet your dealer. Meeting them at their home or a private building is probably the safest: put your money on the floor/table and step back 6 feet while the dealer picks up the money, puts the drugs down, and retreats back 6 feet; you can then pick up the drugs and leave.
When you get home, clean the drug packages with an alcohol-based sanitizer (at least 60% alcohol) if it’s been inside your body – or transfer the drugs to another bag/container – and then wash your hands for at least 20 seconds
