As part of the province's harm-reduction strategy, the B.C. Ministry of Health will provide crackpipe mouthpieces to people who smoke crack.

Dr. Perry Kendall, the province's chief medical officer, said simple mouthpieces made from surgical tubing will be distributed by outreach workers through needle exchanges and other community health services as early as April.

The program is intended to cut down on the transmission of blood-borne diseases such as hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and syphilis, which can be spread by smokers sharing glass crackpipes, Kendall said.

Crack smokers often have burns and sores on their lips, he said, so when users share a pipe, they will be able to use their own mouthpieces and reduce the risk of disease transmission.

Kendall said there would not likely be any age restrictions to stop minors from receiving the mouthpieces, since young drug users are the most likely to contract a disease through shared equipment.

The program is expected to be cheap to run because it will be rolled into existing programs, such as needle exchanges, and it will only use a relatively small amount of cheap surgical tubing, Kendall said.

Crack is a cheap and highly addictive illegal drug made from cocaine.