SAFE-INJECTION SITES: YES OR NO?

Re: "Injection sites our moral imperative" (Gazette, Dec. 29).

Columnist Henry Aubin describes safe injection sites as a "moral
imperative." Most proponents argue for this on the principle of "harm
reduction" - when faced with two evils, the moral choice is to pick
the lesser, in the interests of reducing harm.

That makes a lot of sense, but it also leaves a certain bad taste in
my mouth. When I start to analyze why, I converge on two main
reasons. The first is that I generally don't like to do things that
can seriously harm others, like giving them needles with which they
inject drugs that certainly will harm them, and may even kill them.

Secondly, I don't like to be coerced into taking a morally ambiguous,
unsavoury position via a form of blackmail ("Give me the tools I need
to be a junkie or I will hurt myself even more") or via the many
politically correct attitudes and arguments ("Are you really such a
retrograde, antediluvian, morality-obsessed ape, dude?").

So harm reduction, while probably the practical way to go in these
circumstances, needs to be limited in scope.

Ask yourself the following: Would you personally hand a clean needle
to an addict who asked you for one? Would you be willing to provide
an addict with a dose of pharmaceutical-grade heroin, given that he
just told you he would go out and get some street junk if you didn't?
Would you provide that addict with a lifetime supply of clean heroin?

These questions, which are based on an individual's choice between
two bad outcomes, can be extended to the horrific cases that occurred
in the Second World War, for example, when concentration-camp inmates
were ordered to select a certain number of their fellow prisoners for
execution - the alternative being that the guards would select a much
larger number to be killed.

How does one find a moral position when confronted with bad choices?
One could say that those choices are false choices, that there are
others, possibly good ones, that must be explored. Very valid, but
sometimes circumstances do force us to choose between evils only. What then?

I would say that I am willing to accept harm reduction up to a
certain point only; it does not have universal applicability. I might
hold my nose and agree to allow injection sites. But at a certain
point, the bad alternatives are so bad, it is entirely reasonable and
right, and possibly necessary, to simply refuse them all.

Alexander Simonelis

Westmount