The suggested legislation seeks to prevent taxpayer dollars from being spent on crack pipes for addicts
Two Republican members of the US Congress proposed last week a new piece of legislation dubbed the ‘Hunter act,’ which seeks to prevent the Biden administration from splurging taxpayer dollars on crack pipes and other paraphernalia for drug addicts. Penned by Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Dan Bishop of North Carolina and submitted on February 10, the act’s name is an apparent reference to Joe Biden’s son Hunter, who admitted to struggling with crack addiction in his 2021 memoir ‘Beautiful Things.’
The Hunter act came off the back of bombshell media reports suggesting that the US government had been planning to use part of a $30 million grant program to purchase crack pipes. The White House has, however, denied that it has any such plans.
Speaking to Fox News Digital, representative Boebert said that she and Bishop were “standing up and saying, heck no” to the “ridiculous” fund allocation by the Biden administration. The congresswoman charged that “our tax dollars should not be funding the death and destruction of crack addicts.” According to Boebert, while “Republicans just want to give people in need a good job,” their rivals from the Democratic party “want to give them crack pipes.”
Addressing the name of the legislation, the lawmaker said it was more succinct than alternatives, such as “Stop Paying to Subsidize Biden’s Son’s Drug Addiction Act,” which “didn’t really flow.” Boebert went on to claim that “tax dollars have been on the hook for Hunter’s addictions long enough.”
Dan Bishop, for his part, criticized liberal drug policies including safe injection sites, needle trade-ins and safe smoking kits, describing those as removing “all stigma” from drug use, while, according to the representative, “stigma is not a bad thing.” Bishop explained that “the HUNTER Act is a means of encapsulating how ridiculous public policy can become when it’s in the hands of the woke.”
The controversy stems from the $30 million Harm Reduction Program grant which is part of the 2021 American Rescue Plan. The program names as its main purpose the prevention of overdose deaths and the reduction of health risks associated with drug use. According to grant documents, funds may be used to purchase overdose reversal medications, safe-sex kits with condoms, fentanyl test strips, syringes, along with safe smoking kits/supplies.
Last Monday, the Washington Free Beacon outlet published an article claiming that a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson had revealed to journalists that the said kits could include, among other things, pipes for smoking crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine or “any illicit substance.” The HHS responded on Wednesday by saying that “no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits.”
White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, too, insisted that crack pipes “were never a part of the kit,” putting the claims down to “inaccurate reporting.” She added that smoking kits may include instead “alcohol swabs, lip balm, other materials to promote hygiene and reduce the transmission of diseases like HIV and hepatitis.”
Despite the official rebuttals, the Washington Free Beacon has stood by its crack-pipe reporting.
Representatives Boebert and Bishop do not seem convinced by the Biden administration’s assurances either. Bishop argued that “whenever they are caught red-handed they use the phrase misinformation or disinformation to stop the American people from calling them out.” Boebert concurred, saying that the lawmakers were not “taking their word for it,” and wanted guarantees “in statute” that taxpayer money will not be spent on drug paraphernalia.
On top of the criticism from GOP lawmakers, the Biden administration has also caught some flak from nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance, which lamented the removal of “pipes from safe smoking equipment” as “deeply disappointing,” calling it a “missed opportunity to be preventative of more deaths due to overdose.”
