Is the federal government doling out crack pipes to addicts in Black neighborhoods? The Washington Free Beaconsays yes, the Biden administration says no.
This squabble is linked to a $30 million harm reduction grant designed to make drug use safer for addicts. This sort of program has been familiar for decades and includes funding for things like clean needles, Narcan, and so forth. However, the program in question also approves the distribution of "safe smoking kits/supplies," which is the origin of the current outcry. The semantic hair-splitting over whether this counts as "crack pipes" seems to be based on whether the kits include only mouthpieces, screens, and disinfectant wipes; or whether they also include the glass pipes themselves. On such things are culture wars built.
So what's the real story? If you google it, all you'll find is a thousand hits related to today's story. This is common, so I find that it's useful to google terms with a date restriction in order to find out what people were saying about them before they became the latest Fox News jihad.
In this case, I didn't find a lot. But last April Maryland handed out some safe smoking kits (including glass pipes) and the chairman of the Caucus of African American Leaders of Anne Arundel County was not amused:
Snowden shared photos showing a number of items from the handouts including a toothbrush, comb, latex gloves, snacks, Narcan, drug tests, tourniquets, syringes, and crack pipes. “We were very, very clear that crack pipes is where we draw the line,” said Snowden.
This is a very attractively packaged safe smoking kit, complete with glass pipes.
Why does Vancouver have a crack pipe vending machine?
Free crack pipes have been a staple at the center for years, but leaders decided to try something new when they couldn't keep up with demand for the pipe's glass stems, which can shatter from the heat of overuse, cut users' mouths, and spread disease if shared.
So Mark Townsend, PHS's manager, figured they might as well try something cheap and easy — like a vending machine. And the colorful contraption, which used to sell sandwiches, works pretty much as you'd expect. Put a quarter in the slot, press the number, wait for the metallic ring to twist and pull the cardboard sleeve, similar to one used to roll coins, out from the tray. Voila.
The machine and its twin at a nearby shop recover the cost of the pipes, don't need to be managed by staff and, with space for about 200 pipes, are restocked about twice a week. They operated for almost eight months before anyone in the international media noticed, a bemused Townsend remarked.
Apparently Vancouver has been offering nearly-free crack pipes "for years" prior to 2014. So maybe 2010 or so?
That's about the earliest reference I could find. The upshot, I guess, is that safe smoking kits have been around for at least a decade but don't seem to be super common compared to needles, wipes, HIV meds, and so forth. For the most part nobody seems to notice them, but occasionally they do and then there's a bit of a backlash. I'm not quite sure why clean pipes are any different from clean needles, but then again, clean needles have been a reliable left-right wedge issue for many years. So I suppose it's no surprise that pipes are too.
Anyway, that's that. Safe smoking kits have been around for a while, but this is the first time they've been funded as part of a federal program. Today someone found out about it and it produced one of the tedious micro-furors that rule our lives these days.
I couldn't care less about it. But your mileage may vary.
18 thoughts on “What the hell is a “safe smoking” kit?”
bebopman
To me, the weird part is that this reads as if the cons have been ok with “ clean needles, Narcan, and so forth.” I doubt that, but I guess “crack pipes” is the next level. …. I also chuckle at how the beacon headline emphasizes how crack pipes promote “racial equity”. What? They couldn’t find a way to also connect this to critical race theory?
OverclockedApe
Not sure about Narcan but remember them going hard against Bill Clinton on needle exchanges and he withdrew support. Iirc it wasn't long after he left office that he publicly said it was a mistake.
Spadesofgrey
Considering moronic ideas like critical race theory take inspiration from "conservatives" , you need to watch the dial.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
Crack is still construed as a Blacks-only drug while methamphetamine, despite its over half-century legacy as a drug of biker gangs & Mexicans, is a white preserve (blame ur-suburban yt dad Walter White) & heroin was reclaimed from Blacks by whites decades ago (I blame Clapton). So, the GQP knows it can make hay with Yungkins Voting Lacrosse Moms by yelling "Biden builds Crack better".
Jasper_in_Boston
I couldn't care less about it.
I feel the same.
I'm pleased to report I finally got the opportunity to witness crack/meth being smoked in real time, on multiple occasions, on the streets of Seattle in 2020 during my stateside stranding. Never saw this during my years in Boston.
sj660
Yet more people are dying of overdoses lately. It’s almost like treatment is needed not “harm reduction” but this isn’t an issue because the same people tell us the homeless crisis isn’t driven by addiction.
Sigh. Another issue liberals are not going to solve and then freak out at the way conservatives solve it.
randomworker
What is the conservative solution? Honestly, I would read any link you post.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
Incarceration for some, letting them seize & die following an overdose for others.
But treatment if the junkie is a GQP state legislator's daughter, as happened to a Northwoods Wisconsin Republican's family.
Spadesofgrey
I don't see anymore dying of overdoses than anytime in the past.
cld
So, does it say what 'snacks' these things come with?
Snickers, chips and watercress sandwiches?
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
Sourpatch Kids.
Junkies got a sweettooth.
haddockbranzini
It is a brilliant GOP election strategy. Who came up with the idea?
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
Given the GQP's recent interest in KKKanadian KKKoup plotting visavis the KKKonvoy to Ottawa, I think the KKKanadian Right should reciprocate & Ontario Premier Doug Ford should condemn public officials in Washington, D.C., being intimately tied to cracksmoke.
Spadesofgrey
Nope. Quebec separatists. A nostril grab you need.
kahner
I actually volunteered at a nonprofit helping sex workers when i lived in dc and one of the things we offered were smoking kits, for, i suppose, crack or meth. I wasn't there very long, but this was way back in like 2005 or 2008 i think. I have no idea if they used federal funds or how they were funded. I also do not care, but I can understand why some people would. Providing clean needles has a well known purpose, preventing aids and other diseases being spread via sharing needles for injection. When it comes to pipes, it's definitely less clear what the public health benefit is. I'm not saying there isn't one, but even when I was giving them out I don't recall anyone explaining it.
jte21
I'm not involved in health care or drug outreach, but it may be so that the user doesn't use a pipe made with dangerous/dirty materials that could cause harm as they cook or inhale the drug, e.g. fashioning a makeshift pipe out of something containing lead, paint, etc.
Goosedat
Many more lives would be saved if opioids were legalized and made available to America's victims of despair. An opportunity was missed with the suits against Purdue attempting to hold the company providing relief to this significant proportion of Americans for profiting from opioids. Instead of monetary penalties to ostensibly be used by states for drug addiction treatment, Purdue should have been made to provide these Americans pharmaceutical grade opioids at cost to avoid their use of black market drugs that are the cause of most overdoses. Saving peoples lives is not the prosecutors goal nor is addressing the reasons for the epidemic of despair or providing these losers in a winner-take-all society with their medicine of choice. Fortunately their are local groups concerned with at least providing these American losers safe injection sites and smoking kits. The despairing, however, would be better off with pharmaceutical opioids with which to salve their broken lives but no one in America is willing to admit it.
gmoke
Portugal, Portugal, Portugal....
Portugal decriminalized almost all street drugs a decade or more ago and have remarkably good outcomes, from everything I've read. That we do not talk about this example of what works - fewer deaths from overdoses, fewer addicts, more recovery from addiction - is an indication of how blinded we are by our prejudices.
To me, the weird part is that this reads as if the cons have been ok with “ clean needles, Narcan, and so forth.” I doubt that, but I guess “crack pipes” is the next level. …. I also chuckle at how the beacon headline emphasizes how crack pipes promote “racial equity”. What? They couldn’t find a way to also connect this to critical race theory?
Not sure about Narcan but remember them going hard against Bill Clinton on needle exchanges and he withdrew support. Iirc it wasn't long after he left office that he publicly said it was a mistake.
Considering moronic ideas like critical race theory take inspiration from "conservatives" , you need to watch the dial.
Crack is still construed as a Blacks-only drug while methamphetamine, despite its over half-century legacy as a drug of biker gangs & Mexicans, is a white preserve (blame ur-suburban yt dad Walter White) & heroin was reclaimed from Blacks by whites decades ago (I blame Clapton). So, the GQP knows it can make hay with Yungkins Voting Lacrosse Moms by yelling "Biden builds Crack better".
I couldn't care less about it.
I feel the same.
I'm pleased to report I finally got the opportunity to witness crack/meth being smoked in real time, on multiple occasions, on the streets of Seattle in 2020 during my stateside stranding. Never saw this during my years in Boston.
Yet more people are dying of overdoses lately. It’s almost like treatment is needed not “harm reduction” but this isn’t an issue because the same people tell us the homeless crisis isn’t driven by addiction.
Sigh. Another issue liberals are not going to solve and then freak out at the way conservatives solve it.
What is the conservative solution? Honestly, I would read any link you post.
Incarceration for some, letting them seize & die following an overdose for others.
But treatment if the junkie is a GQP state legislator's daughter, as happened to a Northwoods Wisconsin Republican's family.
I don't see anymore dying of overdoses than anytime in the past.
So, does it say what 'snacks' these things come with?
Snickers, chips and watercress sandwiches?
Sourpatch Kids.
Junkies got a sweettooth.
It is a brilliant GOP election strategy. Who came up with the idea?
Given the GQP's recent interest in KKKanadian KKKoup plotting visavis the KKKonvoy to Ottawa, I think the KKKanadian Right should reciprocate & Ontario Premier Doug Ford should condemn public officials in Washington, D.C., being intimately tied to cracksmoke.
Nope. Quebec separatists. A nostril grab you need.
I actually volunteered at a nonprofit helping sex workers when i lived in dc and one of the things we offered were smoking kits, for, i suppose, crack or meth. I wasn't there very long, but this was way back in like 2005 or 2008 i think. I have no idea if they used federal funds or how they were funded. I also do not care, but I can understand why some people would. Providing clean needles has a well known purpose, preventing aids and other diseases being spread via sharing needles for injection. When it comes to pipes, it's definitely less clear what the public health benefit is. I'm not saying there isn't one, but even when I was giving them out I don't recall anyone explaining it.
I'm not involved in health care or drug outreach, but it may be so that the user doesn't use a pipe made with dangerous/dirty materials that could cause harm as they cook or inhale the drug, e.g. fashioning a makeshift pipe out of something containing lead, paint, etc.
Many more lives would be saved if opioids were legalized and made available to America's victims of despair. An opportunity was missed with the suits against Purdue attempting to hold the company providing relief to this significant proportion of Americans for profiting from opioids. Instead of monetary penalties to ostensibly be used by states for drug addiction treatment, Purdue should have been made to provide these Americans pharmaceutical grade opioids at cost to avoid their use of black market drugs that are the cause of most overdoses. Saving peoples lives is not the prosecutors goal nor is addressing the reasons for the epidemic of despair or providing these losers in a winner-take-all society with their medicine of choice. Fortunately their are local groups concerned with at least providing these American losers safe injection sites and smoking kits. The despairing, however, would be better off with pharmaceutical opioids with which to salve their broken lives but no one in America is willing to admit it.
Portugal, Portugal, Portugal....
Portugal decriminalized almost all street drugs a decade or more ago and have remarkably good outcomes, from everything I've read. That we do not talk about this example of what works - fewer deaths from overdoses, fewer addicts, more recovery from addiction - is an indication of how blinded we are by our prejudices.