AND WHICH DISPROPORTIONATELY AFFECTS BLACK PEOPLE, HUNTER BIDEN NOTWITHSTANDING: Bob McManus: Giving out free crack pipes is government-assisted suicide.

New York averages eight drug-overdose deaths every day, and City Hall’s response is free crack pipes.

The pipes are being distributed from no-charge-to-addicts vending machines plunked down in already drug-plagued city neighborhoods.

And the machines have been placed near previously established, government-sponsored drug shooting galleries — oops, make that “safe-injection” sites — which are the last big anti-overdose idea.

That obviously didn’t work; overdose fatalities are up 78% since 2019. So who’s the genius who thinks free drug paraphernalia — apparently syringes are soon to be added — will make it all better?

That would be City Health and Mental Hygiene Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, who calls the initiative “an important arrow in our quiver.”

Arrows are lethal weapons.