Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley’s administration provides free drug kits (including syringes and heroin cookers), condoms, and dental dams to illegal immigrants, the Heartland Post has learned exclusively.
“We do not check legal status for health and human services,” Crowley admitted in a recent video announcing the launch of Milwaukee County’s Community Resource Hub website, which also provides legal services for illegals. “We’re gonna continue serving our residents and we’re gonna provide the critical resources and programs that folks need.”
That includes free home delivery of fentanyl test strips, Narcan, Naloxone Xylazine strips, and even 27-gauge “safe use kits,” which contain everything a heroin or fentanyl user would need to get high—syringes, tourniquets, cookers, and antibiotic ointment.
Milwaukee County’s Department of Health and Human Services provides these free of charge by funneling opioid manufacturer settlement funds into Harm Reduction MKE; a program that works to help drug addicts use narcotics in a safer manner.
“Harm reduction is a public health approach that aims to reduce the negative consequences associated with drug use,” Milwaukee County explains on the Harm Reduction MKE site. “It’s based on the principle that people who use drugs are deserving of respect and access to services, regardless of their drug use. Rather than focusing solely on abstinence, harm reduction strategies prioritize preventing overdose, suicide with firearms, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and other health risks.”
This access for addicts includes nearly 30 vending machines across Milwaukee County that dispense free drug kits and contraceptives as well as free home delivery upon request.
Such easy access to drug paraphernalia and Narcan (which is administered during and negates the effects of overdoses) has been highly controversial, as critics note that it paradoxically promotes increased drug use when addicts no longer have as acute a fear of overdose death.
Recent scientific studies support this. In 2022, researchers from the National Bureau of Economic Research reported in the Journal of Public Economics that programs such as Milwaukee County’s actually “increase rates of opioid-related mortality and hospitalizations.”
“[The programs] increase drug-related mortality rates by 11.6 percent and opioid-related mortality rates by 25.4 percent,” researchers found, adding that they also “lead to a higher rate of emergency room visits and in-patient stays for drug-related complications.”
Crowley has argued that giving free drug kits to addicts has led to a dramatic decrease in overdose deaths since the vending machines were first installed in 2023, but Milwaukee County’s decline was well in line with Wisconsin’s overdose death drop and came amid a much broader national decline that is generally credited to the federal government’s crackdown on fentanyl trafficking and illegal immigration across America’s southern border.
Rather than adopt a similar approach, Crowley has repeatedly declared Milwaukee County to be a sanctuary for illegal immigrants and even called himself an “accomplice” to their activities, which now includes illegal drug use.
