Post by ck4829 on Feb 16, 2022 18:14:53 GMT
Proving that they are, once again, Charlie Brown to the Republicans’ Lucy with the football, Democrats have fallen for another bad-faith attack from the right.
This week, the Washington Free Beacon falsely reported that the Biden administration was spending $30 million to send crack pipes to drug users. The claim comes from a grant program from the Department of Health and Human Services that would allow states and community programs to receive funding for harm reduction supplies, which can include clean syringes, condoms, vaccines and safe smoking kits.
Despite having nearly identical rates of drug use as white people, Black and other people of color are disproportionately harmed. The Biden administration’s harm reduction efforts are intended to bridge that gap. But all Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) heard is, “Biden is sending crack pipes to minorities and that’s racist.”
The misinformation spread like wildfire, as it usually does. But who would take such a bad-faith attack line from the party that brought us Donald Trump and has a long and sordid history of hypocrisy, lies and outright racism?
The Biden administration, apparently.
It’s now doing damage control. “No federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” HHS and the White House said in a statement. President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, also said they never intended to send crack pipes; it was just bad reporting from a conservative news outlet.
This is just another instance of the Democrats capitulating to the right for no good reason. Harm reduction is a tried-and-true public health measure that saves lives. Sending the kits out is not dangerous — but backtracking on it is.
The irony of Rubio and others trying to paint the administration as racist for the initiative is that doing nothing will harm Black people even more. The reality is that people are going to use drugs. The very least the federal government can do is ensure people can do so safely.
Of course, to take the fearmongering at face value, you’d have to be gullible enough to believe that the Republicans care about racism and public health. And for that to be the case, well, perhaps you’ve been living under a rock since March 2020.
The first hint that the criticism wasn’t in good faith was that the initiative would include several different products like clean syringes and drug testing kits, but conservatives were focusing on “crack pipes.” crack cocaine has had racist associations since the 1980s, leading to a full-blown moral panic around drugs and the passage of the 1994 crime bill, which Biden helped author as a senator from Delaware. The law, among other things, created sentencing disparities that mandate harsher punishment for the possession of crack than for cocaine.
www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-bad-faith-crack-pipes_n_6206b5fae4b0328e002628bd
This week, the Washington Free Beacon falsely reported that the Biden administration was spending $30 million to send crack pipes to drug users. The claim comes from a grant program from the Department of Health and Human Services that would allow states and community programs to receive funding for harm reduction supplies, which can include clean syringes, condoms, vaccines and safe smoking kits.
Despite having nearly identical rates of drug use as white people, Black and other people of color are disproportionately harmed. The Biden administration’s harm reduction efforts are intended to bridge that gap. But all Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) heard is, “Biden is sending crack pipes to minorities and that’s racist.”
The misinformation spread like wildfire, as it usually does. But who would take such a bad-faith attack line from the party that brought us Donald Trump and has a long and sordid history of hypocrisy, lies and outright racism?
The Biden administration, apparently.
It’s now doing damage control. “No federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” HHS and the White House said in a statement. President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, also said they never intended to send crack pipes; it was just bad reporting from a conservative news outlet.
This is just another instance of the Democrats capitulating to the right for no good reason. Harm reduction is a tried-and-true public health measure that saves lives. Sending the kits out is not dangerous — but backtracking on it is.
The irony of Rubio and others trying to paint the administration as racist for the initiative is that doing nothing will harm Black people even more. The reality is that people are going to use drugs. The very least the federal government can do is ensure people can do so safely.
Of course, to take the fearmongering at face value, you’d have to be gullible enough to believe that the Republicans care about racism and public health. And for that to be the case, well, perhaps you’ve been living under a rock since March 2020.
The first hint that the criticism wasn’t in good faith was that the initiative would include several different products like clean syringes and drug testing kits, but conservatives were focusing on “crack pipes.” crack cocaine has had racist associations since the 1980s, leading to a full-blown moral panic around drugs and the passage of the 1994 crime bill, which Biden helped author as a senator from Delaware. The law, among other things, created sentencing disparities that mandate harsher punishment for the possession of crack than for cocaine.
www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-bad-faith-crack-pipes_n_6206b5fae4b0328e002628bd