Did Minnesota give grants to organization that provides ‘boofing’ kits to drug users?

A week before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, conservative investigative journalism outlet The Washington Free Beacon published a story saying Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz provided funding to an organization that gives drug users “booty bumping kits,” allowing them to consume drugs through the rectum (a practice sometimes called “boofing”).

The claim about the Democratic then-candidate for vice president spread on social media before fizzling out.

Two years later, The Washington Free Beacon published another story saying Walz and the state’s Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan “Steered Millions To Pay for Disgusting ‘Booty Bumping’ Kits.” Flanagan is currently running for U.S. Senate in the 2026 midterms.

Citing the outlet’s 2026 report, social media users claimed in October that Walz and Flanagan have provided roughly $8 million to Southside Harm Reduction Services, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization that operates several harm reduction programs and supposedly provides the kits.

Snopes readers also contacted us for more information about this story.

We found that Walz and Flanagan’s administration has provided funding to Southside since 2020. While The Washington Free Beacon claimed in October 2026 that the state government has promised roughly $8 million to the organization, Snopes calculated Southside has been promised $9.1 million in grants through 2030. 

Southside does provide “booty bumping kits” to drug users. However, it was not possible to find evidence that the organization spent “millions” in state funding on such paraphernalia. The actual figure is likely to be significantly lower — not a seven-figure sum.

Snopes contacted Flanagan’s campaign, the Minnesota state budget office and Southside Harm Reduction Services for comment on the story. None had replied prior to publication. 

What’s true?

In 2023, during Walz and Flanagan’s time in office, the Minnesota State Legislature passed a budget that designated $100 million in funding to organizations that assist the state’s homeless population. Southside Harm Reduction Services is directly named in the news release announcing the funding. 

“[The charity provides] harm reduction services via outreach to people experiencing unsheltered homelessness who use drugs, primarily in or near Minneapolis and St. Paul,” according to the news release. “Services include syringe exchange, naloxone distribution, education, rapid HIV testing and referrals to social services including housing.”

Snopes reviewed contracts for active and expired grants between the state and Southside, confirming they are a recipient of funding and have been since 2020.

Turning to the nonprofit’s social media sites and yearly reports shows the “booty bumping kit” in question and its accompanying mini-zine containing instructions and information about the paraphernalia.

In sum, Southside Harm Reduction Services does receive funding from the state government, and it does provide boofing kits. 

Clarifying the figures

The $8 million figure does not represent the amount of money the state has spent on boofing kits, as some may have incorrectly inferred from the social media posts. The Washington Free Beacon says this figure is the total amount of money the state granted to Southside. The headline of the outlet’s article could, however, lead some readers to incorrectly believe the nonprofit spent “millions” on the kits.

Using Minnesota’s funding transparency database, Snopes calculated that The Washington Free Beacon’s $8 million figure was previously correct but is now outdated. Our calculations showed the state’s Health Department and Human Services Department have promised Southside approximately $9.3 million in total between 2020 and 2030 for all operational purposes. 

The grants function as monthly reimbursements from the state (Page 4, Section 3.2) rather than an up-front lump sum payment. In other words, if Southside does not spend the $9.3 million, the state does not pay anything.

This is noteworthy because budgeting documentation from multiple grants reveals that Southside sometimes, but not always, does not spend all its allocated money (see the table on Page 7). For instance, in an amendment to a grant worth $620,400 spanning a 42-month period, the organization budgeted $22,200 from the grant for “supplies” for the 2025 fiscal year (part of which would presumably have been used to fund the boofing kits). But, according to that grant amendment, Southside spent less than $6,000 of the grant on supplies that year. 

Other grants provide a more detailed breakdown of the organization’s budgeting. Southside’s largest active grant for a total of $2.5 million runs between October 2025 and June 2029. The budgeting documentation provided alongside that contract breaks down Southside’s yearly budget for supplies — $84,378 for the 2026 fiscal year (PDF Page 29) — into individual components, including $37,000 for “Safer-use supplies for safer injection, smoking, and all works” (PDF Page 31).

Southside also spends the grant money on things like travel, benefits and salaries for personnel — not just supplies.

Given that boofing is a rather uncommon method of drug ingestion, that Southside does not always spend all of its granted money, and that the money gets spent in other areas, we conclude Southside is spending a a small fraction of the funding it receives from the Minnesota state government on the kits. 

Why offer these kits in the first place? 

As its name suggests, Southside Harm Reduction Services provides harm reduction programs for the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area, according to its website. Though the kits may sound odd, they do qualify as harm reduction products.

According to the National Harm Reduction Coalition, harm reduction is a set of principles that aim to reduce the negative consequences that come with drug use, like HIV or hepatitis C infections. The principles are formed around the idea that humans will always choose to consume substances, both legally and illegally, and therefore it is worth minimizing the potential harm these substances can cause. 

Well-known harm reduction programs are needle and syringe exchanges, which are called syringe service programs, or SSPs, in the United States. Since infections like HIV and hepatitis C can be spread through contact with blood, used needles and syringes can transmit the virus from person to person. SSPs reduce infections by approximately 50%, according to the U.S. government. These programs also help establish reliable lines of communication with drug users, which can be used to provide additional information on treatments for substance use disorders. (Boofing also requires a syringe, explaining why Southside offers the kits).

In addition to a syringe exchange, Southside’s website notes it also helps give people access to both mental and physical care, including substance use programs, vaccinations, STI testing and more.