Bishop Hubbard approves free distribution of needles to drug abusers [CWN]

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This is such complex and confusing topic. The only way I was able to formulate my own view of this was to look at it subjectively. If my own brother or sister were IV drug addicts and supplying them with clean needles might prolong their lives, would I personally supply them? Absolutely. So, since I consider all of these poor souls to be my brothers and sisters in the broader sense, I approve of what the Bishop is doing in this regard. Still, it is a difficult moral question.
 
I’m not sure off hand what the stats are on the “harm reduction” model regarding drug policy, but I don’t believe it has proved successful.

Personally, I have mixed feelings on the matter. On the one hand, they are addicted anyway, and are going to continue to use drugs until they can control their addiction, clean or dirty needles, so I can see how the charitably minded might want to prevent what’s already bad enough from getting worse.

On the other hand, there’s the whole “moral hazard” argument that, by making drug use less dangerous, it will encourage more drug use. Also, it does fail to address the underlying problem, as a poster above said, like giving boxing gloves to wife-beaters.

One must also take into account that addicts engage in other harmful behavior in addition to (or because of) their drug use, which, in a sense, diminishes any positive effects a needle exchange program may have.
 
JaMc said:
I’m not sure off hand what the stats are on the “harm reduction” model regarding drug policy, but I don’t believe it has proved successful.

Personally, I have mixed feelings on the matter. On the one hand, they are addicted anyway, and are going to continue to use drugs until they can control their addiction, clean or dirty needles, so I can see how the charitably minded might want to prevent what’s already bad enough from getting worse.

On the other hand, there’s the whole “moral hazard” argument that, by making drug use less dangerous, it will encourage more drug use. Also, it does fail to address the underlying problem, as a poster above said, like giving boxing gloves to wife-beaters.

One must also take into account that addicts engage in other harmful behavior in addition to (or because of) their drug use, which, in a sense, diminishes any positive effects a needle exchange program may have.
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When you weight the immediate risks of contracting a deadly virus versus the ‘woulda-coulda-shoulda’ hopeless gameplay of what might be or never be, it’s hard to see them being equal.

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I really doubt that if someone comes to their van without a needle that they would not give them a clean one.

It is still direct cooperation with something that we hold as intrinsically evil, illicit use of drugs.

Also, to the one that would give their own family member clean needles if it would help…I have been there and done that with my own brother. It takes tough love. It takes saying “NO” in spite of being called names, stolen from and everything else that comes with this addiction. It is terrible. It is horrible. And it wears on those that are trying to care for them but if you stick it out, it can work.
He knew all the stats and if push came to shove, he would use a dirty needle - the high outweighed the risk at that time.
Luckily he is clean now and has been for almost 3 years. It took a lot and he will give all the credit to God - which he is right. But he is also thankful that we stayed firm.

His immortal soul is more important than his body. He has health problems and may not live as long as I do, God only knows, but he is free now from that addiction.

It is false compassion to give out or exchange these needles.
 
H_Opey said:
He knew all the stats and if push came to shove, he would use a dirty needle - the high outweighed the risk at that time.
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I think that’s the point of those who favor needle exchange…
 
To me, the issue is a very simple one and this thread has deeply disturbed me.

Does not the bishop’s decision presuppose that the Grace of God is insufficient to save a person from addiction? Any counselor, any spiritual director or medical doctor will agree that a person under chemical influence does not possess full capacity of his soul and can neither exercise prudential judgment or free will. Clean needle or not, he will be unable to cry out to his God from the depths of his heart for deliverance.

Any potential disease is secondary….what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?
 
There are a couple of adages that apply here.

The ends (decrease in HIV) don’t justify the means (cooperation with the sin of drug use).

Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still wrong.
 
momor said:
There are a couple of adages that apply here.

The ends (decrease in HIV) don’t justify the means (cooperation with the sin of drug use).

Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still wrong.
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Not all cooperation with evil is immoral. Catholic moral theology has distinguished between material and formal cooperation. And within material cooperation is the distinction between remote and proximate.

For example, your brother/sister says to you, “If I drink too much tonight can I call you for a ride home or do I have to drive myself?” Now obviously you tell them that they should not be getting drunk. But lo and behold they call you later on and say, “I’'m drunk, if you can’t pick me up I guess I’ll just risk it and drive home.” Is picking them up cooperating in their evil of drunkenness? Or is it an attempt to mitigate more harm from taking place?
 
momor said:
There are a couple of adages that apply here.

The ends (decrease in HIV) don’t justify the means (cooperation with the sin of drug use).

Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still wrong.
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You beat me to it! Not being able to get this very disturbing thread out of my mind, I was going to quote:
CCC 1761: One may not do evil so that good may result from it.
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The Holy Father condemned the distribution of condoms to the African community infected with AIDS/HIV. I see no difference between that and this scenario.

Giving a clean needle to a drug addict with which he may continue his on-going habit seems to me to be cooperation with evil and an egregious error in moral judgment.
NewEnglandPries said:
Not all cooperation with evil is immoral. Catholic moral theology has distinguished between material and formal cooperation. And within material cooperation is the distinction between remote and proximate.

For example, your brother/sister says to you, “If I drink too much tonight can I call you for a ride home or do I have to drive myself?” Now obviously you tell them that they should not be getting drunk. But lo and behold they call you later on and say, “I’'m drunk, if you can’t pick me up I guess I’ll just risk it and drive home.” Is picking them up cooperating in their evil of drunkenness? Or is it an attempt to mitigate more harm from taking place?
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Your example is preventing a further possible evil (after the act has been done.) It is not enablement.
 
Also is the fact that alcohol, for the most part, is legal.
Those drugs are not legal.

I have never been asked to pick someone up from a crank party.
I would do that.

It is cooperation. Most of those exchange programs do not care if they have a needle or not. It also sends a message that this could be OK, the use of these illegal drugs.
 
As the father of a recoveing addict let me say that this is a bad idea. I don’t think my son would have given up the drugs if he had been able to get clean needles and a safe place to shoot up. He has been clean for 3 years come 2/17/2010, please pray for him.
 
…The end never justifies the means, any action that is contrary to the Catholic norms of morality is always against the universality of the Catholic doctrine…[BIBLEDRB][/BIBLEDRB]
 
Check out canon lawyer Ed Peters’ blog In the Light of the Law:
Formal cooperation in another’s evil act (that is, undertaking to help expressly another to perform an act known to be evil) is itself evil. Davis, Moral and Pastoral Theology (1938), I: 341-342. There are no exceptions to this rule; no supervening circumstances can ever render formal cooperation in evil good.
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I think that one who supplies, without a physician’s prescription, needles/syringes (nb: devices with only one practical use) to people whom one reasonably believes will use those devices to inject illegal drugs into their own bodies and/or the bodies of others, encourages those people to practices that are gravely contrary to the moral law, rendering thereby, it seems to me, direct assistance to their commission of an objectively gravely evil act while intending precisely to help them accomplish that act. This conclusion is not contingent on whether the needles are clean, or are merely exchanged, or on any other accidental aspect of the program.*** The only question is whether giving a syringe to a drug abuser abets his or her injection of illegal drugs. If it does, then giving a drug user a needle formally cooperates with the specific evil of his or her taking those illegal drugs.
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Thus, when, Bp. Hubbard of Albany authorized his Catholic Charities office to distribute syringes to apparent drug abusers, in my opinion, he began formally****** cooperating in the grave evil of drug abuse in his diocese.
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I can only add a hearty “Amen!”

Listening to the news/talk stations (not a scientific sampling, I know), Catholic Charities’ actions certainly seem to be a source of scandal to Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
 
The issue with safe injections is centered on the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Yes, injecting heroin can potentially kill a person if it is impure or in a high dosage, as can using a dirty needle even if the drug is pure and in a low dosage.

As long as the bishop believes that providing clean needles saves lives then he is morally justified, and anything related to scandal and indirect cooperation with evil become secondary issues.

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Stylites said:
The issue with safe injections is centered on the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” Yes, injecting heroin can potentially kill a person if it is impure or in a high dosage, as can using a dirty needle even if the drug is pure and in a low dosage.

As long as the bishop believes that providing clean needles saves lives then he is morally justified, and anything related to scandal and indirect cooperation with evil become secondary issues.

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It doesn’t matter what he believes. This is formal cooperation in grave evil.

According to your reasoning, this would be justified:
A man’s girlfriend is pregnant and wants to get an abortion. She asks the man to take her a get a “safe” abortion. She says she will try performing the abortion herself if the man does not take her.

So here, the man might “believe” that taking her to get an abortion would “save lives,” but would you seriously make the claim that taking her to get an abortion would be justified?
 
Something mentioned in Dr. Peter’s arguments against this was that careful deliberation was done - or at least it took them 5 years to come to this conclusion.
How do we get to see their study and those that are defending this?
 
Here’s an analogy I’m surprised I haven’t seen yet:

How about, if a woman is going to have an abortion, and it’s either drive her to the nearest abortion clinic, which is 50 miles away, or she’ll just have a back alley abortion. Would it be right to drive her to the abortion clinic, where it would be performed under sterile conditions? Of course not.

*** [EDIT] - Hamburgler beat me to it while I was typing this :)***
 
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