Drugs & Safer Use

All drugs come with their own effects, risks, and harm reduction tips. See each specific drug for details, or scroll down for general substance use safety tips and methods for safer smoking, injecting, snorting, and ingesting.

Harm Reduction TO does not condone or condemn drug use and provides this information for educational purposes.

 
 

General Drug Safety Tips

Have a reliable source 

  • Buy legal substances if possible to ensure a safe supply.

  • Know your dealer. Talk to your dealer about what you are buying from them and ask questions about things like how other people are reacting to the drug. 

  • Test your drugs. Many substances such as MDMA and cocaine are altered and/or mixed with other ingredients. Some Supervised Consumption Services offer same-day drug testing in an offsite lab and will supply fentanyl test strips if you use their services. Testing kits are also available for cocaine, fentanyl, LSD, MDMA, Mephedrone and other cathinones and can be purchased for between $15.00-$25.00 by contacting www.tripproject.ca or www.dancesafe.org (Aids Committee of Toronto).

Do not use alone or in a locked room 

  • The majority of overdoses and other bad experiences happen when people use alone. It is always best to use with a friend or group so that you can check-in on one another. 

  • It is important to tell your friends when and what you’re using in case of an emergency. 

Start slow and with a low dose

  • The potency and purity of drugs vary between batches. This means that if you haven’t tried the drug before, or it is a different batch than what you are used to, use a smaller amount than you usually would to see how it will affect you. 

Do not mix drugs with alcohol or other drugs 

  • Polysubstance use, meaning the use of multiple drugs at the same time or consecutively can create unexpected reactions in the body. Mixing uppers like cocaine, or MDMA, together with downers like alcohol and Ketamine, can send mixed signals to your heart thereby exacerbating an overdose. Mixing two or more uppers together can put extra strain on your heart and cause you to overheat. Mixing two or more downers together can decrease your blood pressure and reparatory function causing you to lose consciousness and or have trouble breathing (Aids Committee of Toronto). 

  • If you do mix drugs, use less of each drug

Get adequate rest, stay hydrated, and eat well 

  • It is common for drugs to dehydrate the body. Hydrating with water and electrolytes before, during and after use can help prevent dehydration (as well as a less intense hang-over or crash). Common symptoms of dehydration are headaches, fatigue, and hunger (Aids Committee of Toronto).  

  • Drugs, particularly stimulants like cocaine and MDMA, suppress your appetite. That being said, it is important to continue to eat during use. As with hydration, eating during substance use can help lessen the intensity of a hangover (Aids Committee of Toronto).  

Carry Naloxone 

  • Have a loaded syringe or nasal naloxone ready whenever you use 

Method-Specific Drug Safety Tips

Safer Smoking 

There are various methods for smoking different drugs. Smoking produces an intense, fast high and when done long-term can be hard on your lungs. 

  • Cannabis: smoked most safely through a vaporiser or through an undyed paper-rolled joint. Although a bong concentrates the smoke, it is harder on your lungs than other methods of smoking. Do not hold in smoke - holding your breath will not increase your high.

  • Crack cocaine: smoked most safely through a tempered-glass or Pyrex stem-pipe with a filter. Untempered glass will shatter when heated to the degree necessary to be smoked. 

  • Crystal Meth: smoked most safely through a tempered-glass or Pyrex pipe with a bowl on it.

Both crystal meth and crack cocaine, as well as K can be smoked in a piece of heated tinfoil, but this leaves more room for error and can burn the lips when smoked. Free safer inhalation kits for crack are available at multiple harm reduction sites across Toronto (Aids Committee of Toronto).  

Safer Injecting and Vein Care 

Injection is the more dangerous method of consumption because it comes with a greater chance of overdose, HIV transmission, and abscessed or collapsed veins. To reduce these risks, it is important to use clean, unused gear including needles, syringes, spoons, cookers, water, filters, tourniquets, and swabs. Sterile injecting equipment is available at various harm reduction sites across Toronto (link to our page about this). 

Different drugs need to be injected into different parts of the body such as muscle or veins, but never into an artery.

There are also safer areas of the body to inject into:

  • Surface veins on your arms, midsection, and back of hands are the safest sites to inject

  • Your legs, palms, and chest are more dangerous areas so inject slowly and with caution

  • Your wrists have a lot of nerves close to the veins, so it is best to avoid injecting here 

  • It is best to avoid injecting into the groin area as you could hit a major artery leading to loss of limb or death 

  • It is also important to avoid injecting on the head or neck as they are closest to your brain and heart making abscesses more dangerous and overdose more common

You can lower your risk of infection through caring for your injection sites. Rotate injection sites to allow your veins a chance to heal and prevent them from collapsing. You can also take drugs by other means such as smoking, snorting and eating, to reduce the strain on your veins. Try to keep at least one good vein at all times in case of a health care emergency. For more information on how to inject in a safer way see CATIE’s Sharp Shooter manual.

Safer Snorting 

Any drugs in powder form can be inhaled through the nostrils. This includes cocaine, powdered ketamine, crushed meth, and MDMA. This method provides a fast, intense high as the drugs enter the bloodstream directly through the nasal cavity. When snorting, use clean paper straws or bump off your clean hand. Try to avoid using bills, keys, or other peoples’ equipment as they may not be clean and can increase your chances of getting a sinus infection. Alternating nostrils and cleaning them out with warm water can also decrease your chances of infection (Aids Committee of Toronto; CAITE, 2008).

Safer Ingesting 

Ingesting drugs orally is one of the safer methods of ingesting most drugs. This is because the digestive system eliminates toxins and impurities in drugs that can lead to a worse high or crash. Even though it is one of the safer methods of consumption, there are still precautions you can take when ingesting drugs orally. Most importantly, start low, go slow. When ingesting drugs orally, the high is slower to come on and lower in intensity then when used through other means such as injecting or inhaling. By taking a small amount and digesting it first, you can see how you feel before taking more in order to gage how your body will react to the drug (Aids Committee of Toronto). 

References

Aids Committee of Toronto. (n.d.). Safer Party Tips. Retrieved from http://torontovibe.com/safer-party-tips/. 

Sharp Shooters. (2008). Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre, & Canadian AIDS Treatment Information Exchange. Retrieved from http://librarypdf.catie.ca/PDF/ATI-70000s/70095.pdf. 

Overdose Prevention Tips. (n.d.). Harm Reduction Coalition. Retrieved from https://harmreduction.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/HRC_ODprevention_worksheet9.pdf.