Vancouver Coastal Health’s Bad PR

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Vancouver Coastal Health lobbed a softball to news outlets with their poorly executed “Free Crack Pipes” announcement.

In the depths of the August news drought, Vancouver health authorities announce a health initiative involving – get this – free crack pipes for crack addicts. Really?

I wasn’t going to comment on the City of Vancouver’s recent notice that, to protect the public health, they’re going to supply crack pipes to addicts. But the resulting uproar begs a column.

Not so much on the rightness or wrongness of the plan – I happen to think it’s a smart thing to do from a health point of view, and is also relatively low-cost – but on the presentation.

You see, in all their earnestness to do good, Vancouver Coastal Health did a lot of harm. Instead of the story being about a response to a serious health menace that ripples out into the entire community, it became yet another story about those damn drug addicts in the Downtown Eastside and how the city is wasting money.

All anyone wants to talk about is:
–The city’s giving crack pipes to addicts so they can smoke more drugs. Aren’t drugs illegal?
–What the heck. You’re using my money (i.e. taxes) to help a bunch of addicts feed their habit?

I’m sure the health authority and the city have good intentions and probably a good case for what they’re doing – after all, the safe injection sites are being hailed as a creative response to the HIV problem. But come on, did you not expect some problems when you said you were going to distribute crack pipes to addicts?

Of course it’s a knee-jerk, low-rent reaction guaranteed to incite anger. But couldn’t you have emphasized instead that you’re attacking the HIV and hepatitis scourge that is afflicting the area, and by proxy (diseases spreads outside a community pretty quickly), the entire community?

I wasn’t at the announcement, but I’ve been around the news business long enough to know what the story that came out would be.

So a little PR lesson: never announce this kind of thing in August. It’s slow news time. You gave a scrumptious gift to every news operation out there that would make headlines for days, maybe even weeks – Free Crack Pipes for Addicts!

Sure beats dogs, kids, and weather stories, which usually dominate the headlines at this time of year.

Another lesson in information dissemination: you have an answer to one part of a very complex problem. But most people – especially today in the era of itty bitty little news bites – don’t have time for complex. They’re going to look for something very simple, and, preferably, outrageous and salacious.

You provided it: Free Crack Pipes for Addicts!

Lastly, there’s a civic election coming up. I’m sure the Vision people really appreciated your latest fodder for attacking them. Let’s see, bike lanes, bridges, Olympic village, and now . . . Free Crack Pipes for Addicts!

The pundits, amateur and professional, are having a field day.

And so a well-intentioned response to a serious health problem goes up in . . . um . . . smoke.