White House says they been 'very clear' that the administration is not funding 'crack pipes'

In a White House press conference on Tuesday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was questioned on whether the administration has been in touch with Republican leaders that have raised concerns regarding providing grants for "smoking kits/supplies" that have been reported to contain crack pipes.

"Has the administration been talking to the two Republican senators who have raised concerns?" one reporter asked, noting that Senators Marsha Blackburn and Mike Lee were ones raising concerns.

"We are engaged with a range of Democrats and Republicans and certainly, we are hopeful that we will be able to sign this," Psaki responded, in regards to a stopgap funding bill being proposed in Congress which would fund the government until March 11, avoiding a shutdown.

Blackburn had placed a hold on the stopgap bill last week, citing concerns with a $30 million grant program under the Department of Health and Human Services aimed at reducing the risks of substance abuse, which would reportedly include crack pipes in safe-smoking kits, a claim that the Biden Administration has repeatedly denied, according to The Wall Street Journal.

On Tuesday, Blackburn lifted the hold after she received a letter from Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra stating that “no federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits.”

"I had said I would lift the hold once they provided clarity," said Ms. Blackburn, who notified Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of her intention to lift her hold.

Psaki continued on during the press conference to state that Blackburn’s issue with the bill was "not an issue," because the Biden Administration has stated that they are not funding these items.

"I would note though, that I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that one of Senator Blackburn's primary concerns is about a relation to  the funding of crack pipes, is this correct? Which is not an issue. What is happening here is its potential to hold up funding the government and important programs around an issue that is not an issue, because we've been very clear that we are not providing funding for crack pipes," Psaki concluded.

There was, however, substantial controversy regarding this subject. A grant program from HHS said that funding would go to "smoking kits/supplies," without listing the inventory of those boxes. When reporters noted that these kinds of kids usually do provide glass pipes, the HHS issued a statement that they would not provide funding for pipes, and the White House said the same. However, groups that were looking forward to the grants slammed HHS for no longer planning to provide pipes as part of the kits. Fact-checkers swooped in to say that HHS never intended to provide crack pipes.

Over the weekend, Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Dan Bishop of North Carolina announced a piece of legislation called the "Halting the Use of Narcotics Through Effective Recovery Act of 2022," also known as the "HUNTER Act," which would ban federal taxpayer dollars from funding crack pipes, needles, and other drug-related paraphernalia.

Boebert told Fox News that the current name was "a better acronym than Stop Paying to Subsidize Biden's Son's Drug Addiction Act. That didn't really flow."

"The HUNTER Act is a means of encapsulating how ridiculous public policy can become when it's in the hands of the woke," Bishop said during the joint interview.