The Biden Legacy: Let ‘Em Smoke Crack, So Long As There’s No Nicotine (or Menthols)!

Two years after Biden admin launched a $30 million program to Make Crack Safe Again, they’re trying to shutter North Carolina farms with nicotine near-ban

In 2022, President Joe Biden’s administration launched a three-year, $30 million initiative to help people smoke crack and shoot heroin more safely.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, funds could be used to purchase and distribute “safe smoking kits/supplies” and “syringes to prevent and control the spread of infectious diseases,” among other paraphernalia.

The safe smoking kits funded by the Biden administration contained everything except the crack and, maybe, the pipe (there was some uncertainty about whether funding could actually be used for the pipes, too).

Forgive our whiplash, then, that the same feds who subsidized smoking crack now say they just will not abide people smoking regular cigarettes.

The same administration is looking to effectively end tobacco farming in North Carolina by forcing farmers and manufacturers to potentially remove up to 95% of the nicotine found in cigarettes.

According to a recent study authored by Pepperdine University economist James Prieger and sponsored by the John Locke Foundation, the Biden nicotine ban would “create possibly insurmountable obstacles for farmers to grow compliant tobacco,” crushing many of the 822 tobacco farms in North Carolina.

We’re not here to say smoking is a public good. People probably shouldn’t choose to do it, and those who do should fork over more for health and life insurance. But tobacco is still a moneymaker for rural North Carolina. People’s livelihoods depend on it. To throw those livelihoods away through a hastily-executed rule in the waning days of a lame duck administration is bad news.

And if the nanny state do-gooders really had interest in smoking cessation, they should stop handing out smoking kits to crack addicts.