Biden administration to fund programs that hand out crack pipes to prevent infection and promote 'racial equity'

Biden administration to fund programs that hand out crack pipes to prevent infection and promote 'racial equity'
By MORGAN PHILLIPS, POLITICS REPORTER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 18:16 EST, 7 February 2022 | UPDATED: 18:41 EST, 7 February 2022

The $30 million grant program will distribute funds to nonprofits and local governments to make drug use safer and 'advance racial equity'

Included in the grant is money to purchase 'safe smoking kits/supplies'

A spokesperson for HHS said included in these kits could be pipes for users to smoke substances like crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine

HHS said that the kits will serve to limit the risk of infection - typically users smoke out of glass pipes which can lead to cuts and sores that become infected

Handing out pipes is also intended to prompt users to smoke rather than inject themselves with some substances, like meth, as injection is far riskier

It is against the law to sell or distribute drug paraphernalia - including such pipes - unless authorized by state, local or federal law

President Biden's Health and Human Services department (HHS) is finalizing funding to dole out crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its 'Harm Reduction Plan.'

The $30 million grant program, which accepted applications until Monday and will begin doling out money in May, intends to provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to make drug use safer, to advance 'racial equity.'

Included in the grant is money to purchase 'safe smoking kits/supplies.' A spokesperson for HHS told the Washington Free Beacon that included in these kits could be pipes for users to smoke substances like crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, or 'any illicit substance.'

HHS said that the kits will serve to limit the risk of infection - typically users smoke out of glass pipes which can lead to cuts and sores that become infected with diseases like Hepatitis-C.

Handing out pipes is also intended to prompt users to smoke rather than inject themselves with some substances, like meth, as injection is far riskier.  

Applicants for the program get priority if they serve 'underserved communities,' such as African Americans or Native Americans, or LGBTQ people.

The crack-cocaine epidemic starting in the 1980s disproportionately ravaged the black community.

Included in the grant is money to purchase 'safe smoking kits/supplies.' A spokesperson for HHS told the Washington Free Beacon that included in these kits could be pipes for users to smoke substances like crack cocaine and crystal methamphetamine, or 'any illicit substance'

President Biden's Health and Human Services department (HHS) is finalizing funding to dole out crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its 'Harm Reduction Plan'

Other harm reduction supplies that could be purchased with the grant money include testing equipment for sexually transmitted diseases, overdose reversal medication, medication lock boxes, syringes and substance test kits.

The grant program lasts three years and includes 25 awards of up to $400,000.

It is against the law to sell or distribute drug paraphernalia - including such pipes - unless authorized by state, local or federal law.

There were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the 12-month period ending in April 2021, according to the CDC, a 28.5% increase from just the year prior. Three-quarters of those deaths involved opioids, many of them being synthetic opioids, such as methamphetamine or fentanyl.  

Cities like San Francisco and Seattle have experimented with their own crack pipe kit distribution programs. Others have backed away from such plans. Louisville, Ky. allowed convenience stores to sell drug kits, before later banning them from doing so.  

Meanwhile, the Justice Department (DOJ) signaled Monday it may allow 'safe injection sites' to open up across the U.S. Such sites would be safe havens where drug users could use heroin and other narcotics freely without risking arrest in an environment monitored by health professionals.

The DOJ told the Associated Press it was 'evaluating' such facilities and talking to regulators about the 'appropriate guardrails.' The DOJ under the Trump administration had prosecutors who fought aggressively against a plan to open safe consumption sites in Philadelphia.

'Although we cannot comment on pending litigation, the Department is evaluating supervised consumption sites, including discussions with state and local regulators about appropriate guardrails for such sites, as part of an overall approach to harm reduction and public safety,' the agency said in a statement Friday to the AP.

A divided appeals court last year ruled that safe injection sites would violate a 1980s-era drug law aimed at 'crackhouses.'  The Supreme Court in October declined to take up the case.  

About six weeks later, the first officially authorized safe injection sites opened in New York City. The two facilities — which the city calls 'overdose prevention centers' — provide a monitored place for drug users to partake, with staffers and supplies on hand to reverse overdoses.

The New York City sites so far have intervened in more than 110 overdoses among more than 500 users, many of whom have made multiple visits, according to OnPoint NYC, the organization running them.

However, critics say they are only encouraging drug use and burdening the surrounding communities.  

'Is this a cruel joke? Drug overdose deaths are at their highest recorded levels. The Biden administration should focus on stopping traffickers instead of creating more demand for their product,' Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., wrote on Twitter of the Justice Department's consideration of the facilities.

Biden needs to get drugs and dealers off the streets. Period.

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

Biden needs to get drugs and dealers off the streets. Period.

How is Big Pharma expected to keep raking in obscene profits if people can just run around self-medicating with stuff that isn't made by Big Pharma?

How are doctors and clinics like the ones that helped make oxycontin a national scourge supposed to get their kickbacks and bribes if customers are buying from some rando instead of a "trusted source"?

You don't care about "drugs and drug dealers", only specific drugs and types of dealers because you need someone to blame for society's ills that doesn't have any power and can't threaten the status quo.

LoL

GTFOWTS

Vitriol wrote:

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

Biden needs to get drugs and dealers off the streets. Period.

How is Big Pharma expected to keep raking in obscene profits if people can just run around self-medicating with stuff that isn't made by Big Pharma?

How are doctors and clinics like the ones that helped make oxycontin a national scourge supposed to get their kickbacks and bribes if customers are buying from some rando instead of a "trusted source"?

You don't care about "drugs and drug dealers", only specific drugs and types of dealers because you need someone to blame for society's ills that doesn't have any power and can't threaten the status quo.

LoL

GTFOWTS

The "act" is bullshit. Fuck any type of drugs, not just street crap.

I don't take any form of meds, drugs, vitamins. No shots. No doctors, no hospitals, no clinics, no exams.

Call me lucky, or wise and powerful.

People have been taking drugs since there have been people.
I've seen cogent arguments that we can thank our remote ancestors' use of psilocybin or other psychoactive compounds for our ability to think abstractly... in other words for being able to think like a human.

When/if Virginia gets around to fully legalizing weed I'm sure I'll be smoking it again, though surely not in the quantities of my youth. I have a nicotine addiction and probably one for caffeine as well. Where would you draw the line... are you going to take away my cigs and coffee too?

If you want to get rid of (most of) the criminal element in drug trade then there's only one way to actually do that: legalize and regulate the drugs. The prohibition of alcohol didn't stop alcohol production and consumption; it just created an unregulated and unaccountable black market. It made criminal enterprises not only possible but absofuckinglutely necessary.

The "war on drugs" has been an abysmal failure that only benefited for-profit prisons, the police state, politicians who rely on cultural divisions for their careers, Big Pharma, and the military industrial complex.

Like every other "war" our government declares it's really a war on Average People; that's what you want to cheerlead and have more of? Seriously?


Like you, I'm not on any medications and take no symptom-suppressing non-cures. I don't even have aspirin or Tylenol on hand because frankly I just don't need them. That doesn't mean I would deny anyone else their right to use such things though. Most people simply don't have the advantage of being mutants like us who don't require the snake oils, elixirs, and nostrums.

If someone doesn't want to take drugs fine, don't.
But don't tell others what they can or can't do with their own bodies.

That's straight-up fucking fascist.

Did I mention I no longer drink coffee or smoke ciggies??

However:

The Wise And Powerful wrote:

Did I mention I no longer drink coffee or smoke ciggies??

However:

How the hell do you still get Mr. Mike to stand at attention? Aren't you like a couple thousand years old or something?

oliver clotheshoffe wrote:

How the hell do you still get Mr. Mike to stand at attention? Aren't you like a couple thousand years old or something?

Older than dirt, twice as dusty.