No, the federal government isn’t spending $30 million on ‘crack pipes’

Conservative figures have launched an online furor this week, claiming that the government planned to spend $30 million on pipes for smoking crack cocaine.

The heightened concern came months after the Department of Health and Human Services announced a federal grant for local programs that provide myriad “harm reduction” tools, or services that minimize the risks associated with drug use, including distributing drug paraphernalia such as clean needles. Republicans seized on “crack pipes,” causing the phrase to trend on Twitter on Tuesday, the latest in continued resistance from the GOP against harm-reduction techniques at a time when people are dying of drug overdoses at record rates in the United States.

“It’s really disappointing that Republicans are trying to win political points by putting lives at risk and creating misinformation about harm reduction,” said Jamie Favaro, executive director of NEXT Distro, one of the groups that applied for the grants. If given the funds, NEXT Distro would spend funds to distribute the overdose-reversing drug naloxone and clean syringes in Georgia, Louisiana and Nevada.