An Arizona congresswoman is signing onto a bill named for President Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
“I cosponsored [Rep. Dan Bishop’s] HUNTER Act to ban the use of taxpayer dollars for crack pipes!” Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ-08) said on Twitter.Â
I cosponsored @RepDanBishop's HUNTER Act to ban the use of taxpayer dollars for crack pipes! https://t.co/VA4T0wUkgB
— Congresswoman Debbie Lesko (@RepDLesko) March 30, 2022
Bishop is a congressman in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. The bill is also cosponsored by Representative Lauren Boebert (R-CO-03).
The bill’s text says its goal is to “prohibit the use of Federal funds to purchase, or support the purchase of, drug paraphernalia.”
The term “paraphernalia,” according to the bill, “includes, to the extent covered by such definition, crack pipes, harm reduction vending machines, syringes, and safe smoking kits and supplies.”
The bill seeks to eliminate a “Harm Reduction Grant,” a $30 million taxpayer-funded provision in the American Rescue Plan that seeks to prevent Americans from overdosing on drugs, partly by de-stigmatizing and making available that paraphernalia.
“This funding, authorized by the American Rescue Plan, will help increase access to a range of community harm reduction services and support harm reduction service providers as they work to help prevent overdose deaths and reduce health risks often associated with drug use,” the Department of Heath and Human Services (HHS) says of the grant.
According to  Miriam Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D., the assistant secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use, the grant is a “innovative harm reduction services will help keep Americans alive.”
The Republicans sponsoring the HUNTER Act don’t see it that way.
“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 of the bill.
The bill was originally introduced in February, but is now receiving attention after the mainstream media finally reported that Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, the contents of which were first revealed in October of 2020, is entirely real.
That laptop showed several images of the president’s son smoking crack cocaine.
The contents were released just before the 2020 election, and were dismissed by the left-wing press as “Russian disinformation.”
The text of the bill notes that it may also be called the ‘‘Halting the Use of Narcotics Through Effective Recovery Act of 2022.”
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at the Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].