The ‘crack pipe’ controversy frustrates anti-addiction advocates

The “crack pipe” controversy distracts from bipartisan work on the opioid crisis

Addiction policy advocates fear recent conservative outrage over “crack pipes” could set back the Biden administration’s nascent effort to combat the nation’s growing drug crisis. 

Unveiled in April, the White House’s first-year priorities for curbing overdose deaths embraced several divisive policies. But supporters of such measures are concerned a new firestorm — ignited by a misleading article and amplified by Hill Republicans — could further polarize measures they contend are increasingly becoming mainstream and crucial to saving lives. 

• “It feels like decades of progress and very quickly the momentum started to shift against us,” said Ryan Hampton, a national addiction recovery advocate who himself is in recovery.

This dynamic is playing out at a fraught moment for the nation’s drug crisis. Overdose deaths recently hit record levels amid a global pandemic that’s stretched the public health system to its limit.

President Biden’s drug plan was the first to use the term harm reduction — which refers to policies aimed at curbing deaths and infectious diseases, rather than just achieving abstinence. The administration homed in on promoting syringe service programs; the opioid overdose reversal drug, naloxone; and test strips to detect the powerful synthetic fentanyl. 

On Feb. 7, a Washington Free Beacon article relied on assumptions when it alleged federal dollars from a new grant program would be used to distribute “crack pipes.” It unleashed a conservative uproar that could elicit further scrutiny over the administration’s overall addiction strategy, as White House officials maintain support for the harm reduction strategies they laid out in April, and again in October. 

• “This goes back to some historical perspective that harm reduction approaches — and again, despite all the evidence to the contrary — can be seen by some as enabling drug use,” said Michael Botticelli, who ran the White House drug policy office under President Barack Obama. “I fear that the latest controversy will create a microscope under which people will view these kinds of efforts.”

The Biden administration’s response: After the Free Beacon story, top officials stated that no federal funding would “be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees” for pipes in safe smoking kits. 

• A Biden administration spokesperson told The Health 202 that such pipes are considered illegal drug paraphernalia under federal law. There isn’t a statute prohibiting the use of federal funds to purchase pipes, but without a specific reference to pipes in the grant funding announcement as an authorized purchase, “why would it follow that a grantee could use federal funds to purchase something that is otherwise considered illegal drug paraphernalia.”

But over the last two weeks, the blowback has continued.

• Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) threatened to block swift consideration of a stopgap spending bill over disputed claims about the new grant program.
• Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)…