Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody is suing the Biden administration over allegedly failing to comply with Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
The FOIA requests are to find out if taxpayer dollars were used to provide drug addicts crack pipes, according to a press release from Moody’s office.
The FOIA request was filed over a year ago, the lawsuit claims and a federal statute says that all FOIA requests must be responded to within 20 working days.
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According to the release, the request was regarding Biden’s safe smoking kits.
The Biden administration denied that there were crack pipes in the safe smoking kits, but failed to respond to the FOIA request verifying that in time. The kits were funded to reduce harm for those with addictions and included things like alcohol swabs, steel wool, and, in some cases, pipes.
Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “If Biden is using your tax dollars to buy crackpipes for drug addicts, you have the right to know. Our country is in the grips of a drug overdose crisis, and the Biden administration is stonewalling our requests and keeping the public in the dark about so many misguided, reckless policies. We are taking them to court to get answers for the American people.”
Last year, President Joe Biden initiated a federal grant that would reimburse states for providing safe smoking kits. The grant program cost taxpayers $30 million.
According to news sources, kits from five major U.S. cities—Baltimore, Boston, New York, Richmond, and Washington, D.C.—contained crack pipes. Kits available from a harm-reduction center located only city blocks away from the U.S. Capitol, and two elementary schools also contained drug paraphernalia.
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In February, The Free Press reported that President Joe Biden endorsed a $30 million “harm reduction” healthcare plan that included “safe smoking” kits for minority communities.
Conservative critics argued Biden was furnishing crack pipes. GOP Sen. Marco Rubio even led 15 other Republican senators in introducing a bill blocking funding for the program. Rubio used terms like “lunacy” and “insanity” in denouncing the plan.
Liberals, on the other hand, defended Biden. They claimed there were no pipes.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki called the Washington Free Beacon, which initially broke the taxpayer-funded crack pipe story, “inaccurate” for its report.
In another example, the Palm Beach Post did a “fact check” of Rubio’s claim, in which they declared Rubio was wrong by going on what was told them by the spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which would oversee the program.
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The Free Beacon apparently did something novel: they visited the sites that got the federal grants to pass out the “safe smoking” kits.
“Crack pipes are distributed in safe-smoking kits up and down the East Coast, raising questions about the Biden administration’s assertion that its multimillion-dollar harm reduction grant program wouldn’t funnel taxpayer dollars to drug paraphernalia,” the Free Beacon reported on Thursday.
“The findings are the result of Washington Free Beacon visits to five harm-reduction organizations and calls to over two dozen more. In fact, every organization we visited—facilities in Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Richmond, Va.—included crack pipes in the kits.”
“While the contents of safe-smoking kits vary from one organization to another — and while those from some organizations may not contain crack pipes — all of the organizations we visited made crack pipes as well as paraphernalia for the use of heroin, cocaine, and crystal methamphetamine readily available without requiring or offering rehabilitation services, suggesting that pipes are included in many if not most of the kits distributed across the country,” the Free Beacon reported.
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“All of the centers we visited are run by health-focused nonprofits and government agencies—the types of groups eligible to receive funding, starting this month, from the Biden administration’s $30 million grant program.”
The Free Beacon added, “None of the organizations responded to inquiries about whether they applied for government grants. It is unclear which organizations will receive those grants, nor has the administration said how it will ensure the kits will not contain crack pipes.”
HHS declined to provide a list of groups that have applied for the funding, citing “confidentiality,” the Free Beacon noted.
“A survey of more than two dozen harm reduction organizations found that not all harm reduction organizations distribute safe smoking kits, but those that do almost always provide crack pipes,” the Free Beacon added. “The few that don’t include crack pipes in their kits say they are willing to, but unable to.”
The Free Beacon included photos of the smoking kits it acquired and a brief summary of its interaction with the groups that supplied pipes.
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