The Biden administration will be funding a federal program which it says aims to reduce diseases and cut drug use overall. The program includes the controversial distribution of "safe smoking kits" — or crack pipes.
The Department of Health and Human Services grant program is set to begin in May, and applications closed on Monday. It will provide $30 million to nonprofits and local governments for multiple purposes, including education and counseling for drug addicts.
But it is the "safe smoking kits/supplies" that stir controversy, just the same as "clean needles" programs have in the past.
An HHS spokesperson told The Washington Free Beacon, which first reported on the story, that the pipes were for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and "any illicit substance."
Priority for the funds will go to "underserved communities" as defined in one of Biden's first-day-in-office executive orders, titled: Executive Order On Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.
"Grant recipients will focus activities on 'meeting people where they’re at' within the context of harm reduction through integrating trauma-informed care and facilitating the use of peer support workers in programming," the grant application reads.
Cities such as San Francisco and Seattle, with Democratic governments, have undertaken such programs, the Free Beacon notes, though others have given up on them over concerns that they encourage drug abuse.
"If we look at more of a preventive campaign as opposed to an enabling campaign, I think it will offer an opportunity to have safer communities with fewer people who are dependable on these substances," Sgt. Clyde Boatwright, president of the Maryland Fraternal Order of Police, told the Free Beacon.
The program is funded by Biden's American Rescue plan, which was passed on a party-line vote. It lasts three years and will hand out $400,000.