Can ‘Safe’ Injection Sites Make a Difference?

IS ICE CREAM COLD? –

Feb. 17, 2022 – This month, drug-policy experts also flagged the Department of Justice’s decision to revisit the federal government’s opposition to a safe drug-injection site in Philadelphia that would offer clean needles and supervise drug consumption to prevent overdoses.

The Trump administration successfully filed suit to block the site’s opening, but Biden’s DOJ just announced that it was in “discussions with state and local regulators about appropriate guardrails for such sites, as part of an overall approach to harm reduction and public safety.”

At the same time, Catholic ethicists have raised moral and practical objections to the new focus on harm reduction, while noting that the Church has yet to issue formal teaching on the matter.

“Doubtlessly, clean needle sites do some good, such as prevent infection and disease,” E. Christian Brugger, professor of moral theology at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, told the Register. “But they are not without bad side effects. The two most serious are they enable self-destructive behavior, and they make the institutions administering or supporting them look like they support the addictive behavior.”