I got to say I find this one… well… is this real???
President Biden, through the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), rolled out a new “Harm Reduction Grant” program for Fiscal Year 2022, supposedly designed to “support community-based overdose prevention programs, syringe services programs, and other harm reduction services.” But if you thought “Obamaphones” were a poor use of taxpayer funds, Joe Biden is one-upping his predecessor with “Bidenpipes,” perhaps inspired by his son Hunter.
With an emphasis on “health equity” — defined by the Biden administration as “ensuring that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible” and "the right to access quality health care for all populations regardless of the individual’s race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, or geographical location — the grant program outlines what allocated taxpayer funds may be used for in the name of “harm reduction.”
As the grant program document (found in full here) explains, funds can be used to:
- Purchase equipment and supplies to enhance harm reduction efforts, such as:
- Harm reduction vending machine(s), including stock for machines;
- Infectious diseases testing kits (HIV, HBV, HCV, etc.);
- Medication lock boxes;
- FDA-approved overdose reversal medication (as well as higher dosages now approved by FDA);
- Safe sex kits, including PrEP resources and condoms;
- Safe smoking kits/supplies;
- Screening for infectious diseases (HIV, sexually transmitted infections, viral hepatitis);
- Sharps disposal and medication disposal kits;
- Substance test kits, including test strips for fentanyl and other synthetic drugs;
- Syringes to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases;
- Vaccination services (hepatitis A, hepatitis B vaccination); and
- Wound care management supplies.
The bullet point that is the most eyebrow-raising is “safe smoking kits/supplies,” the bureaucrat-sanitized term for crack pipes.
While they may sound innocuous, “safe smoking kits” typically include a clean pipe and other supplies that can be used to smoke crack, meth, or fentanyl (or parmesan cheese, if your name is Hunter Biden). Thanks to the Biden administration, taxpayer dollars can soon be used by grant recipients to buy and provide these crack pipe kits to those struggling with addiction.
In Maryland’s Anne Arundel County, safe smoking kits have already drawn the ire of community leaders in recent years, leading the county to stop including clean pipes in its kits aimed at helping users — which only raises additional questions about why the Department of Health and Human Services is pushing to provide literal crack pipes paid for by taxpayer funds as part of a grant program aimed at “harm reduction.”