Explaining the claim that the Biden administration is funding ‘crack pipes’
Categories: FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Republican lawmakers and conservative news outlets have accused the Biden administration of planning to give out pipes for smoking crack cocaine.Their claims this week refer to a provision in an overdose prevention program announced in December. The program provides funding for “safe smoking kits,” but it makes no specific mention of glass pipes. In response to the outcry, Biden administration officials denied offering funding for such pipes. Safe smoking kits are listed as just one of the allowable purchases. The grants also provide funding for disease and drug testing kits, wound care supplies, condoms, syringes and vaccines. In a fact sheet about the program, the Department of Health and Human Services said it did not expect grant recipients to purchase all of the listed supplies.Moreover, the smoking kits are not specific to crack cocaine and can also be given to users of methamphetamine and opioids. Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, was more emphatic. She told reporters that pipes “were never a part of the kit” and dismissed the suggestion that they would be included as inaccurate reporting. She was most likely referring to an article published Monday by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet; citing an unnamed spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, the article said the kits would provide pipes. The department did not respond when asked by The New York Times if glass pipes were ever allowable under the grant provisions.“It stands in place of something riskier,” Duffy said, adding that “it opens up to entirely new communities HIV testing, referral and health services.”Duffy, whose organization did not apply for a grant, said he was disappointed that the Biden administration was “baited into a conversation that doesn’t need to be validated.”