White House Caves to Right Wing Smear Against "Crack Pipes"
The Biden Administration funded $30 million for harm reduction programs. After a racist smear campaign, the administration ensured no federal funds will be spent on "crack pipes."
On March 11, 2021, President Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan into law. A measly $30 million of the trillions in the package was set aside for harm reduction programs, which distribute syringes, naloxone, and other tools to prevent disease, infection, and death.
The simple idea behind harm reduction is that drug use is a fact of human life, and that just because somebody uses substances, that doesn’t mean they cannot be helped, and that doesn’t mean they’re less deserving of compassion, dignity, and respect. Harm reduction is both a philosophy and a practice that aims to make substance use, sex, and other aspects of human behavior less risky. In her new book Undoing Drugs, Maia Szalavitz describes harm reduction as “radical empathy.”
In early December 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the call for grant applicants for the $30 million. It’s a big deal, marking the first time in history the US government specifically invested in much needed harm reduction programs. Funding harm reduction signaled a turn away from America’s draconian drug war, which has long deployed punishment and incarceration instead of compassion and empathy.
In need of a shiny new (racist) object to whip up their audience heading into the midterms (apparently non-binary M&Ms and critical race theory ran out of gas), right-wing outlets began to circulate the absurd smear that the government was spending $30 million to distribute “crack pipes.” Then, Democrats caved.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that the Biden Administration is funding the distribution of crack pipes to “advance racial equity,” a lib-triggering headline if there ever was one. Then Fox News quickly cited that report in a post online, which then filtered up into the nightly primetime broadcast.
“Uncle Sam to hand out crack pipes!” Fox News’ Jesse Waters declared.
Writing in his media-focused Substack The Column, Adam Johnson listed more than a dozen news stories (including from local Fox affiliates) dedicated to the crack pipe smear:
Feb. 8 - Fox News: Blackburn demands answers regarding reports of Biden's taxpayer-funded crack pipe distribution
Feb. 7 - The Daily Mail: Biden administration to fund programs that hand out crack pipes to prevent infection and promote 'racial equity'
Feb. 8 - Center Square: Reports of Biden’s taxpayer-funded crack pipes draw scrutiny
Feb. 8 - Dozens of Fox affiliates: Biden administration to fund programs to hand out crack pipes
Feb. 8 - Fox News/Yahoo: Crack pipe distribution funded by HHS, prioritizing 'underserved' communities: report
Feb. 8 - The Independent: GOP outraged at $30m Biden plan to fund ‘crack pipe distribution’ in effort to reduce drug harm
Feb. 8 - Epoch Times: Biden Administration to Fund Distribution of Smoking Kits, Needles to Drug Addicts
Feb. 8 - Sean Hannity: WHAT HAPPENED TO ‘CRACK IS WACK’?: Biden Admin Funds Crack Pipe Hand Outs for ‘Racial Equity’
Once the story rocketed through the conservative media hyperloop, GOP politicians like Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, et al. pounced.
Of course the GOP was going to whip up a racist panic about harm reduction sooner or later. That’s hardly surprising. The crack pipe smear campaign also came on the heels of news about Biden’s Department of Justice signaling a more favorable stance on supervised consumption sites. Soft, lukewarm support for consumption sites and $30 million for harm reduction? Conservative America’s brain broke.
I shouldn’t really be surprised by any of this. The right will always deploy their dog whistles and stir up their base, casting liberal drug policy as “enabling” illegal drug use. But what happened next was genuinely sad: Biden’s White House caved. “HHS and ONDCP are focused on using our resources smartly to reduce harm and save lives. Accordingly, no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” the Office of National Drug Control Policy said in a statement sent by email. (emphasis mine)
Harm reduction programs can distribute hypodermic syringes, but they cannot put a little pipe in a smoking kit? It makes no sense. Why not simply stand up against the false outrage and thoroughly argue for a genuinely helpful thing?
It’s an incredible statement because there actually is evidence that providing pipes in safer smoking kits does reduce harm and save lives. In the Journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, researchers explain how, similar to sharing syringes, sharing crack and meth pipes can also spread blood-borne disease like hepatitis C: “HCV transmission via smoking crack and methamphetamine is plausible because the pipe can get very hot and burn the lips, creating open sores. Thus, sharing these pipes could lead to blood to blood contact.”
Writing in The Column, Johnson wrote, “The party supposedly concerned with ‘believing science’ should get out in front of this issue, combat the smears, defend the policy, and stand up for a constituency that, by definition, has little power or voice in public policy making,” Johnson wrote in The Column.
That’s exactly what should’ve happened. But it didn’t.
And it’s not like the White House got much help. What jumped out to me during all this hype and panic about crack pipes is how people who actually work in drug policy, or say that they’re a member of the “recovery community,” or even liberals who say they “believe science” responded.
A recovery-focused publication called Treatment Magazine ran a headline that the Biden Administration “sinks” $30 million into harm reduction, implying the money would be wasted. Liberal news outlets like Yahoo reported on the GOPs “outrage” over the $30 million, rather than clearly spelling out that this whole thing is a smear campaign. Bakari Sellers, a political commentator who regularly appears on cable news, tweeted his own dismay at how Black media covered the “crack pipe” smear (he’s probably referencing a cruel piece from the Shade Room).
Meanwhile, in San Francisco….
Translation: This thing I’ve been hearing about for years certainly doesn’t work and I’m sure as hell not going to learn anything about it! And, by the way, I’m a former opioid user myself and guess what? Harm reduction certainly saved my life! Thanks harm reduction.
America is a huge outlier among developed countries for our lack of public health and harm reduction infrastructure. Our overdose death rate is also a global outlier (see my recent post on Norway). America incarcerates an obscene number of people and spends inordinate amounts of money on law enforcement rather than treatment and harm reduction.
If we’re ever going to make a dent in these grim trends, America needs to spend much more than $30 million on harm reduction. And the government needs to rapidly scale up supervised consumption sites. If the White House caves to a conservative media-fueled panic about crack pipes, how can they possibly implement more robust and necessary harm reduction strategies?
The fact that a measly $30 million marked for harm reduction sparked such a fevered backlash shows just long and rocky the road ahead of us is.
Great piece. It truly is a sad commentary that the right would choose this to use as their latest tactic to continue the divide, especially in the manner they have.
I think the point is they don’t really care about harm reduction or saving lives of people who they see as disposable members of society as in “they are just drug addicts”. Some of them may understand the concept others may not but it is clear they don’t care either way.
Sadly as a result record “ODD” will continue.
It’s also sad commentary that the Democrats cave so quickly to such a “smear campaign”.
The Democrats made a decision they need to grow a pair & stand behind it! For heaven’s sake people are dying!!!!
I saw an article claiming that woman is a liberal. But she says she's a "moderate liberal" and we all know that's just a conservative. I'm not a liberal either. I'm a commie, but I'm also very tired of living in a country with no left wing, doomed to fly in circles until we run out of gas and fall into the sea. San Francisco is full of these ppl and to be totally honest, "native" or not I wish they'd just leave instead of desperately trying to make us into a gated suburb with better food and entertainment. If you don't wish to live in the big city....leave. Gods know you've got the cash.