Recently, the Biden administration announced funding for a federal program designed to reduce drug use and diseases. Ironically, the taxpayer-funded program also includes the highly questionable distribution of “safe smoking kits,” otherwise known as glass pipes typically used for consuming crystal methamphetamine and crack cocaine.
The federal program, which is run through the Department of Human and Health Services (HHS), is scheduled to start in May, when it will provide up to $30M to various local governments and nonprofit organizations for varied reasons, including ostensible counseling and education for drug abusers.
However, the inclusion of “safe smoking kits” in the program have generated significant controversy, much in the same way “clean needles” programs for heroin addicts and other intravenous drug users have in the past.
An HHS spokesperson informed the Washington Free Beacon that the pipes were primarily used for crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and any other “illicit substance.”
Communities designated as “underserved” have the highest priority for receiving the funds, given one of Biden’s first executive orders: Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government
The recipients of the grant will ostensibly “focus activities on ‘meeting people where they’re at’ within the context of harm reduction,” namely through “facilitating the use of peer support workers in programming” and “integrating trauma-informed care.”
Various liberal cities, notably San Francisco, have expressed great enthusiasm for the program, though several others have expressed concerns that the free smoking kits will augment drug abuse.
According to Sgt. Clyde Boatwright, who serves as the President of the Maryland Fraternal Order to the Police, the federal funds should serve as “a preventive campaign” rather than “an enabling campaign.”
In that scenario, “safer communities with fewer people who are dependable on these substances,” may become possible, Boatwright concluded in remarks to the Washington Free Beacon.
The HHS program has been funded through Biden’s “American Rescue Plan,” and it is set to last for three years.
