FADING FLOWERS FIND A NEW WHIPPING BOY

The Carr Government's legal shooting gallery isn't doing great business,
according to those unfortunate enough to have had the facility dumped in
their neighbourhood -- against their wishes -- by the Uniting Church.

Only a few junkies have popped in to shoot up, or even shoot the breeze.
Perhaps they will in time.

The Uniting Church's publicity-seeking drug champion, the Rev Harry
Herbert, is nonetheless attempting to portray the installation as a major
success, even alluding to the possibility that a life has been saved
through speedy action by the facility's staff.

In fact, it is impossible to say, but -- hey, let's not question this
particular church.

No, the most popular church to target remains the Catholic model and its
forthright archbishop George Pell, now the bogyman for faded flower
children everywhere, clinging to the misguided values of the swinging '60s.

Dated disc jockey Mike Carlton was at it the other day, blaming the
archbishop for ordering St Vincent's Sisters of Charity to abort their
plans to run a shooting gallery through the hospital.

As it happens, the remaining sisters don't call the shots, the board does,
and it was initially swayed by Dr Alex Wodak, who runs the hospital's drug
and alcohol clinic, which has in the past received financial support from
international financier George Soros, who doesn't believe there should be
any prohibitions on drug use.

It retreated after the Vatican expressed its view on the matter, which the
Vatican did at the request of the International Narcotics Control Board.

The Vatican's view has not been explored but it does deserve examination --
for its reasoned approach.

Observing that such facilities had sprung up in a number of countries in
the "last years of the past century" and recognising that "it is surely not
an easy task to come to a balanced answer that would be acceptable and
satisfying for all parties on this matter", the Vatican's opinion is
defined primarily from the point of view of the individual.

"On the basis of this fundamental principle we can say that drug dependence
is against life itself. We can neither talk about a 'freedom of taking
drugs' nor about a 'right for drugs', because a human person has no right
to damage itself and cannot and should not renounce its personal dignity
bestowed upon it by God alone. It is especially dangerous in the case of
the young," the Vatican said.

"Having this in mind it seems clear that providing a 'clean' environment
for taking illicit drugs is not acceptable from an ethical point of view.
It is in fact not aimed at treating drug addicts to free them to the extent
possible from their habit. Therefore such initiatives seem to be inadequate
and even unlawful in the approach to drug addicts.

"The right approach must have as its aim health care and the liberation of
the person from conditions unworthy of a human being."

THE Vatican said this approach must be part of a broad spectrum of various
activities by governmental, non-governmental and private institutions and
individuals aiming inter alia at discovering the roots of drug dependence,
at education and prevention, especially among the young.

It acknowledged that supporters of drug injection rooms argue the
measurable harm reduction for society as a whole and for individuals in
particular, diminishing the danger of overdose, infection, and transmission
of various diseases.

But it also pointed out disadvantages including what it "characterised as a
low interest for social reintegration" on the side of drug addicts who make
use of such establishments.

As to the argument that drug injection rooms are harm reducing, it pointed
out that an analogical harm reduction occurs in therapeutical communities
which are aimed at recuperation of drug addicts and at their social
reintegration.

For those who have been claiming that the Vatican view represented a
hard-line approach, the statement emphasised that though the consumption of
illicit drugs and the establishment of drug injection rooms are ethically
not acceptable, it did not mean a condemnation of drug addicts who make use
of such centres.

"The right approach could not be a sole legal repression or ethical
condemnation of the drug addicts but all efforts should be taken toward
rehabilitation of these persons in order to enable them for a long-lasting
social reintegration," the statement said.

Nor did the Vatican question the sincerity and humanitarian intentions
behind the establishment of drug injection rooms, just that they were, for
the Holy See, "ethically unacceptable and unlawful".

It's hard to argue with that.