The first-ever crack pipe vending machine has debuted in Canada — and it surprisingly isn’t in Toronto.
Canada’s first crack pipe vending machines come to #Vancouver http://t.co/kucsVG8ZBD pic.twitter.com/eimDnbF0FF
— CTV Vancouver (@CTVVancouver) February 8, 2014
A nonprofit installed two of the dispensers in Vancouver to limit the health risks involved in crack use. Vice reports, “The intense heat and repeated usage that comes with crack addiction can quickly wear pipes down to jagged nubs.” This helps proliferate the spread of Hepatitis C and HIV.
With 200 pipes each, sold at 25 cents a pop, the machines get refilled every five days. There’s even a marketing strategy. “We packaged a crack pipe in polka dots and people were very intrigued by it and wondered what it was,” Drug Users Resource Centre director Kailin See told The Globe and Mail. “It was a hit right away.”
And you thought you couldn’t get anything for a quarter anymore.