Practice notes

Helping injectors switch from injecting to smoking is a new area of practice for many workers. We hope that the information on these practice notes pages will enable you to feel confident in promoting the use of foil.

If there's an issue that isn't covered, or if you have developed interventions that we could include on the site, please do not hesitate to drop us a line.

Of course, many people do not want to move to smoking as an alternative route of drug use to injecting. These injectors must feel comfortable continuing to use the needle exchange and undue pressure should not be exerted on them to stop injecting.

However, there are significant groups of injectors who may be open to switching to smoking some or all of the drugs they take, in particular those who:

• have recently started;
• are injecting partly becasue a partner is injecting;
• are having trouble getting venous access
• have recently moved to femoral injecting
• are experiencing serious problems as a result of femoral injecting; or
• have recently detoxed or been released from prison.

The foil packs are useful tools to encourage discussion and provide an ideal opportunity to give essential advice:

• to move from injecting to smoking;
• about the relative dangers of injecting compared to smoking; and
• about the relative benefits of smoking over injecting (these will often change over time as people have increasing difficulty getting venous access).