SAFE INJECTION SITES MAY FALL TO IDEOLOGY

An Evangelical Christian scientist, with the support of 134
scientists and public health officials, has challenged the federal
government to either continue funding a safe injection site for drug
addicts in Vancouver or admit ideology and not science is behind its
decision to close down the three-year old InSite safe injection facility .

In "Science and Ideology ," published in the online scientific
journal www.openmedicine.ca , Dr. Stephen Hwang claims statements
from Health Minister Tony Clement that scientific studies on safe
injection sites are so far inconclusive "suggests that scientific
evidence is about to be trumped by ideology." Without a decision to
continue funding by Sept. 12, InSite will close in December.

Among the signatories supporting Hwang's letter are British
Columbia's chief medical officer of health, the head of the British
Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Montreal's director of public
health. Hwang is a doctor and researcher at St. Michael's Hospital
and a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto.

The idea of tax dollars going to help addicts do something which is
illegal and immoral may sound wrong to many Christians, but science
tells Hwang that it is in fact the Christian thing to do.

"I feel very strongly about this issue. This issue is one in which
not only does the science show that it's effective, the scientific
evidence strongly suggests that the fears that people raise about the
approach are not true," Hwang told The Catholic Register. "It's a
case in which even if one were to make the moral argument that we're
concerned that this harm reduction intervention will encourage people
to use more drugs, the evidence suggests that's not true."

Studies show the crime rate has fallen in Vancouver's downtown east
side since the safe injection site opened, that addicts seek
rehabilitation sooner because of the safe injection site and that the
clean needles distributed at the site help control the spread of HIV,
hepatitis and other diseases. Science is a better basis for deciding
how to treat addicts than a gut reaction of moral repugnance for what
addicts do, Hwang said.

"The discussion around addicts and addiction will often degenerate
into a discussion of how do we good people avoid being harmed by
these bad people," Hwang said. "It is very much a kind of blaming,
and positioning oneself as being morally superior to these people."

Hwang's Evangelical faith tells him that isolating and punishing
addicts is wrong.

"Our Christian faith tells us that we're all equally sinful, and we
stand equally before God, and none of us is righteous or good in the
Christian sense," he said. "Therefore, we shouldn't be creating
classes of what people now call bad people but which Christians call
sinners. It's essentially saying, 'I'm not so bad a sinner and you're
a really bad one.' "

The Catholic case for harm reduction in public health care is just as
strong, said clinical ethicist Brendan Leier.

"The tradition that speaks to me on this is really the social justice
tradition," said the St. Joseph's College, University of Alberta
professor of moral theology and ethicist at the John Dossetor Health
Centre in Edmonton.

Public policy which marginalizes and demonizes addicts has proven
itself to be harmful to the common good in the "war on drugs"
approach in the United States, Leier said. High standards of personal
morality don't constitute a public policy which cares for the whole
community, he said.

"For individuals, it's fine to say 'I'm not going to raise my
children with a harm reduction strategy; I'm going to say you should
abstain from premarital sex and you should abstain from drugs and
alcohol,' " said Leier. "That's fine. That's an individual choice,
and one that I would certainly never argue with anyone about. But
when we're talking about public policy, public policy demands the
allocation of scarce resources - tax dollars and what have you. That
demands a fair and equitable rationale for their distribution.
Unfortunately, dogma and individual conscience decisions to abstain
and any sort of moralistic judgment doesn't weigh into the just
allocation of scarce resources."

While some Catholics might at first worry that the government is
materially or formally co-operating in evil by providing addicts with
the tools of their own destruction, that doesn't stand up to
scrutiny, said Redemptorist ethicist Fr. Mark Miller.

Traditional Catholic moral theology prohibits formal co-operation in
the sin of another, meaning to assist someone in committing an evil
act while having in mind the same purpose or goal as the person
committing the act. If the purpose of the safe injection site is to
provide a safe environment, clean needles, medical supervision and
generally to preserve the life of the addict then it's not formally
co-operating in the addict's self destructive act.

"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," said Miller, who works as clinical
ethicist at St. Paul's Hospital in Regina. "When they're addicted
that's a whole different kettle of fish. My argument would be that
we're providing material co-operation because it does reduce harm."

A Catholic understanding of the natural law concept found in the
writing of St. Thomas Aquinas would strongly favour following
scientific evidence in setting public policy, said Miller.

"The truth of science is something that will complement the truth of
morality, and vice versa," he said.

Catholic support for harm reduction isn't just a matter of ethical
theory and philosophy in Miller's eyes. He also turns to Scripture.

"This is a social justice issue. It's almost like the situation of
lepers in the time of Jesus," he said. "What Jesus did was say, 'No,
you embrace them; you bring them in, you make them part of the
community.' That becomes part of the healing. It doesn't work for
everybody, but it's going to work for the community. It also becomes
part of the healing of the community, because otherwise you become
elitist and moralistic."