When I noticed this article from the Free Beacon this morning, I had to double-check to make sure it wasn’t one of Andrew Stiles’ hilarious parody pieces, but it turns out that it wasn’t. A new program intended to “help make drug use safer for addicts” is being rolled out by the Department of Health and Human Services under the Biden administration beginning in May. As part of this effort, funding will be provided to local governments and nonprofit groups so they can provide free safety materials to drug users. Among these materials will be free crack pipes for some reason. And just to put a cherry on top of this announcement, the programs will be required to prioritize aid to minority and LGBTQ addicts in keeping with the Biden administration’s requirements to advance racial equity.

The Biden administration is set to fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its plan to advance “racial equity.”

The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. Included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, are funds for “smoking kits/supplies.” A spokesman for the agency told the Washington Free Beacon that these kits will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and “any illicit substance.”

HHS said the kits aim to reduce the risk of infection when smoking substances with glass pipes, which can lead to infections through cuts and sores.

We’ve already seen plenty of programs where clean syringes are distributed to addicts, purportedly to reduce the spread of diseases through shared needles. There are multiple distribution centers in New York City doing that already. But free crack pipes was a new one on me. I suppose that if someone broke a glass crack pipe they might cut themselves and potentially develop an infection, but what are these government crack pipes made out of? Stainless steel?

The prioritization of the grants to be issued is almost comically offensive, or at least it would be seen as such in a more sane world. Any government agency or nonprofit group applying for these grants will be given priority consideration if they can show that they serve “a majority of underserved communities, including African Americans and LGBTQ+ persons.”

I’m sorry (not sorry), but isn’t a characterization of Black and Hispanic people as being in more need of help in smoking crack kind of… racist? Or at least it would certainly be described as such if someone not associated with the wokest presidency ever were to suggest it.

While we certainly need to do better in clearing up the homeless problem in our cities, including offering treatment to deal with drug and alcohol addiction, these “safe” drug injection and smoking locations seem to be totally misguided. I’m reminded of an editorial segment that Tucker Carlson broadcast earlier this year where he analyzed the effects of dumping vast amounts of money into ways to make it easier and safer for people to take illegal drugs in public.

In the editorial, he points out that when you spend lavish amounts of taxpayer money on providing services to the homeless (as opposed to getting them off of the streets) you wind up with more homeless people. Similarly, when you dump equally vast amounts of money into programs allowing people to drink or do drugs in public spaces, you wind up with more people drinking and doing drugs in public spaces. It’s really just the law of supply and demand being twisted in new and unexpected ways. If you missed this particular segment, give it a look here. Some will criticize Carlson for being harsh or insensitive to the needs of underserved communities, but he makes an awful lot of sense.