'SAFE INJECTION SITES' AND TACKLING IV DRUG ABUSE

So-called "safe injection sites" are special buildings where drug addicts
can go to shoot up illegal drugs without fear of arrest or prosecution.
Such a facility has been operational in Canada on the east side of
Vancouver for several years, and drug abusers from around the area come to
receive clean needles, ampules of sterile water, swabs for cleaning
injection sites, band-aids, ascorbic acid powder (to cut the drugs with),
and small metal spoon tools.

The Canadian government has been funding this site and is in the process of
renewing the funding.

Other municipalities like San Francisco and New York have also been
considering instituting such sites. Many groups are opposed to these drug
zones, seeing them as cooperating in, if not directly promoting, a practice
that is clearly unethical and highly damaging to society.

They argue that taxpayers should not be forced to pay for places where
people can use illegal drugs and destroy their lives.

The idea behind the safe injection sites is to reduce the collateral damage
from drug abuse.

Proponents argue that since addicts have begun to use the safe injection
sites, the crime rate on the east side of Vancouver has fallen and the
rates of HIV and hepatitis have declined because clean needles are available.

Because nurses can keep an eye on addicts after they shoot up in the
facility, they say that deaths by overdose will decline, since ambulances
can be called more easily than if drug users were shooting up alone in a
darkened alley.

They further claim that the needle exchange program can allow users to
remain healthy until they get help for their substance abuse problem.

There is even a priest who has penned a kind of defense of these sites,
writing, "Some people would say you're giving them the OK. I disagree with
that because I think the implication is that we're dealing with people who
can make choices.

When they're addicted that's a whole different kettle of fish." In other
words, drug users, like fish, have no free will.

While drug addiction certainly puts a major dent in human freedom, it would
be false to conclude that an addict can't make choices.

The only reason there is any hope left for an addict is because he still
has a small and diminishing space of freedom that he can act on, allowing
him to decide whether or not to begin a new journey--he can choose to take
the first step along the road leading away from addiction toward
rehabilitation. Our public strategy for dealing with drug addiction must
always show great sensitivity toward that tiny space of freedom that
remains in each individual struggling with addiction.

After all, it is precisely this freedom that sets us apart from our animal
counterparts. Public policy should not contribute to shrinking that space
of freedom even further through approaches that enable destructive
behaviors and greater addiction.

The widely touted claim that safe injection sites reduce collateral damage
from drug abuse is itself dubious.

Researcher Garth Davies, at the conclusion of an extensive analysis of the
question, notes how safe injection sites are "too often credited with
generating positive effects that are not borne out by solid empirical
evidence." The claim that crime rates dropped in Vancouver following the
opening of the safe injection site might have resulted from the injection
of 60 police officers into the area when the facility opened (including 4
officers stationed directly outside the facility), rather than from the
injections occurring at the facility itself. He concludes, "In truth, none
of the impacts attributed to the safe injection facilities can be
unambiguously verified."

Public funding should be directed toward rehabilitation programs rather
than safe injection sites.

Some argue that safe injection sites might on occasion afford the
opportunity to lead addicts toward rehabilitation. Yet there is a
contradiction between enabling the addiction on the one hand and promoting
rehabilitation on the other.

This contradiction can be seen very clearly in what our society has learned
about treating alcoholism. Most of us have witnessed--even among our
families and neighbors--how destructive the addiction to alcohol can be.
Not only can it ravage a person's life, but it can also destroy their
family, lead to loss of employment, and, even, in some cases, endanger the
lives of others through drunken fits or drunk driving.

We've also seen how many alcoholics have been helped by 12-step programs
like Alcoholics Anonymous, where the accumulated wisdom of millions of
former addicts recognizes that the only way they can conquer their
addiction is through supporting each other to never again have another drink.

Imagine that, instead of supporting programs like AA and alcoholic
rehabilitation centers, a government were to establish bars where
alcoholics could come to get drunk, and provided clean glasses, furniture
and bathrooms, healthy hors d'oeuvres and munchies, and police protection
so that they couldn't be robbed in dark alleys.

Would any of us really think that this would be promoting their
rehabilitation? Those who struggle with substance abuse are deserving of
public policy initiatives that rehabilitate rather than enable the addicted
individual.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in neuroscience from
Yale and did post-doctoral work at Harvard. He is a priest of the diocese
of Fall River, Mass., and serves as the Director of Education at The
National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia. See www.ncbcenter.org