If more than one in every five Americans currently uses illegal drugs and there are 535 members plus thousands of staffers in Congress, well, you can do the math.
U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst has a warning: People who use drugs are trying to influence the federal government.
“As part of a new Biden administration initiative, ‘people who use drugs’ will help decide how to spend nearly $30 million of your tax dollars on smoking kits and drug equipment and supplies for other drug users,” Ernst’s office wrote in a news release this past week.
This is supposed to be shocking but it is utterly mundane: Of course people who use drugs help decide how tax dollars are spent. Taxpayers, voters and policymakers have been using drugs throughout our republic’s history.
Ernst and other politicians are in a tizzy over reports that millions of federal dollars would be used for harm reduction programs and could end up being spent on crack pipes. Administration officials have said the funds will not be used for pipes and Republicans are proposing legislation to make sure of it. Bipartisanship.
The bit about drug users directing tax dollars invokes a familiar caricature of the dimwitted and unproductive junkie, the type of person who maybe shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the democratic process. In reality, people who use drugs are just regular people. They are your friends, your neighbors and maybe even your elected officials.
Crack cocaine is unfairly stigmatized and carries extreme criminal sentencing disparities but it is the same substance as powder cocaine. Smoking crack delivers faster and more intense effects but the effects are similar — heightened alertness and sociability but also sometimes anxiety and agitation. Both have a risk of addiction and overdose, which can be higher when mixed with other substances.
About 16 percent of Americans have tried cocaine and 2 percent are current users, according to federal statistics from 2020. About 4 percent have tried crack. For all illicit drugs (including marijuana, even in states where it’s legal), current use is estimated at 22 percent.
If more than one in every five Americans currently uses illegal drugs and there are 535 members plus thousands of staffers in Congress, well, you can do the math.
We know of several cases of politicians using drugs, so we can assume there are many more we don’t know about. In 1983, for example, a U.S. House committee found evidence that three former members — two Democrats and a Republican — had bought and used cocaine while in office. In 2013, GOP Rep. Trey Radel was busted for buying cocaine from an undercover cop.
Former President Barack Obama acknowledged in his 1995 memoir that he had used cocaine. George W. Bush never admitted it but also never outright denied the widespread rumors that he had used cocaine. Say what you will about their governance, but their past drug use probably didn’t have anything to do with it.
America’s Founding Fathers didn’t have access to cocaine but they used plenty of other substances. Several were heavy drinkers or grew their own tobacco. Some were also big fans of opioid concoctions that today would be schedule II drugs alongside the prescription painkillers politicians are trying to crack down on.
Snuff, finely ground tobacco meant to be snorted through the nose, was popular in that era. It’s not hard to imagine Thomas Jefferson staying up late drafting the Declaration of Independence and taking hits of nicotine to boost his alertness. It’s not hard to imagine him doing the same with another stimulant, cocaine, if he’d had access to it.
Humans have been consuming substances to alter their moods and mental states for at least as long as humans have been organizing governments. There’s no doubt those activities have overlapped on innumerable occasions.
What’s implicit in Ernst’s mocking of drug users is the idea that they are some distinct class of people. In fact, most Americans will try drugs at some point in their lives and most people who use drugs problematically eventually will stop and live healthy lives. Unless they die, which brings us back to crack pipes.
As part of a federal harm reduction program, the government is supplying smoking kits to local organizations. Such kits include things like alcohol swabs, lip balm and sometimes glass pipes themselves, which all help reduce the risk of burns and infections while smoking. The kits also provide an alternative to injecting drugs, further reducing the risk of infection and also overdose.
Giving people pipes does not persuade them to do drugs. When users don’t have safer drug use supplies, they may use dirty, broken or improvised devices that carry higher risks.
Ernst and a group of Senate Republicans are sponsoring the CRACK Act, which would prohibit American Rescue Plan Act funds from being used for drug paraphernalia.
Biden administration officials deny that they ever intended to use federal money for pipes. At the same time, though, the White House is promoting syringe service programs, which provide fresh needles to people who inject drugs.
What’s the difference between a pipe and a syringe? Most notably it’s the arbitrary lines we draw around certain substances and their users. The goal of harm reduction programs is to reduce the most harmful effects of drugs. Both pipes and syringes do that but the Biden administration is somehow for one and against the other.
See, you don’t have to take drugs to make dumb policy decisions. Sober Joe Biden shows us everyday.
“If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs,” the late P.J. O’Rourke once wrote, “we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”
www.thegazette.com
U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst has a warning: People who use drugs are trying to influence the federal government.
“As part of a new Biden administration initiative, ‘people who use drugs’ will help decide how to spend nearly $30 million of your tax dollars on smoking kits and drug equipment and supplies for other drug users,” Ernst’s office wrote in a news release this past week.
This is supposed to be shocking but it is utterly mundane: Of course people who use drugs help decide how tax dollars are spent. Taxpayers, voters and policymakers have been using drugs throughout our republic’s history.
Ernst and other politicians are in a tizzy over reports that millions of federal dollars would be used for harm reduction programs and could end up being spent on crack pipes. Administration officials have said the funds will not be used for pipes and Republicans are proposing legislation to make sure of it. Bipartisanship.
The bit about drug users directing tax dollars invokes a familiar caricature of the dimwitted and unproductive junkie, the type of person who maybe shouldn’t be allowed to participate in the democratic process. In reality, people who use drugs are just regular people. They are your friends, your neighbors and maybe even your elected officials.
Crack cocaine is unfairly stigmatized and carries extreme criminal sentencing disparities but it is the same substance as powder cocaine. Smoking crack delivers faster and more intense effects but the effects are similar — heightened alertness and sociability but also sometimes anxiety and agitation. Both have a risk of addiction and overdose, which can be higher when mixed with other substances.
About 16 percent of Americans have tried cocaine and 2 percent are current users, according to federal statistics from 2020. About 4 percent have tried crack. For all illicit drugs (including marijuana, even in states where it’s legal), current use is estimated at 22 percent.
If more than one in every five Americans currently uses illegal drugs and there are 535 members plus thousands of staffers in Congress, well, you can do the math.
We know of several cases of politicians using drugs, so we can assume there are many more we don’t know about. In 1983, for example, a U.S. House committee found evidence that three former members — two Democrats and a Republican — had bought and used cocaine while in office. In 2013, GOP Rep. Trey Radel was busted for buying cocaine from an undercover cop.
Former President Barack Obama acknowledged in his 1995 memoir that he had used cocaine. George W. Bush never admitted it but also never outright denied the widespread rumors that he had used cocaine. Say what you will about their governance, but their past drug use probably didn’t have anything to do with it.
America’s Founding Fathers didn’t have access to cocaine but they used plenty of other substances. Several were heavy drinkers or grew their own tobacco. Some were also big fans of opioid concoctions that today would be schedule II drugs alongside the prescription painkillers politicians are trying to crack down on.
Snuff, finely ground tobacco meant to be snorted through the nose, was popular in that era. It’s not hard to imagine Thomas Jefferson staying up late drafting the Declaration of Independence and taking hits of nicotine to boost his alertness. It’s not hard to imagine him doing the same with another stimulant, cocaine, if he’d had access to it.
Humans have been consuming substances to alter their moods and mental states for at least as long as humans have been organizing governments. There’s no doubt those activities have overlapped on innumerable occasions.
What’s implicit in Ernst’s mocking of drug users is the idea that they are some distinct class of people. In fact, most Americans will try drugs at some point in their lives and most people who use drugs problematically eventually will stop and live healthy lives. Unless they die, which brings us back to crack pipes.
As part of a federal harm reduction program, the government is supplying smoking kits to local organizations. Such kits include things like alcohol swabs, lip balm and sometimes glass pipes themselves, which all help reduce the risk of burns and infections while smoking. The kits also provide an alternative to injecting drugs, further reducing the risk of infection and also overdose.
Giving people pipes does not persuade them to do drugs. When users don’t have safer drug use supplies, they may use dirty, broken or improvised devices that carry higher risks.
Ernst and a group of Senate Republicans are sponsoring the CRACK Act, which would prohibit American Rescue Plan Act funds from being used for drug paraphernalia.
Biden administration officials deny that they ever intended to use federal money for pipes. At the same time, though, the White House is promoting syringe service programs, which provide fresh needles to people who inject drugs.
What’s the difference between a pipe and a syringe? Most notably it’s the arbitrary lines we draw around certain substances and their users. The goal of harm reduction programs is to reduce the most harmful effects of drugs. Both pipes and syringes do that but the Biden administration is somehow for one and against the other.
See, you don’t have to take drugs to make dumb policy decisions. Sober Joe Biden shows us everyday.
“If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs,” the late P.J. O’Rourke once wrote, “we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.”
Joni Ernst: This is your tax dollars on drugs
People who use drugs are trying to influence the federal government, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst warns.
www.thegazette.com
