Madam, - I recently attended a seminar in Trinity College entitled "Reducing Drug-Related Harms: The uses of ambiguity", by Dr Craig Reinarman from the University of California, with a response by Dr Shane Butler of the Addiction Research Centre in Trinity.
Dr Reinarman is a social scientist with a great deal of knowledge about harm reduction strategies, and was here to discuss whether such policies should be based on explicit moral principles.
However, both he and Dr Butler chose to ignore the moral issues surrounding drug abuse, and instead promoted the notion of "shrouding" policies such as legalisation of drugs and user-rooms, in "political ambiguity", with a view to ensuring their eventual adoption by society. This is all apparently for the benefit of the drug addict.
However, neither speaker seemed to appreciate that the very notion of "harm" is a moral notion, so that their avoidance of moral talk while continuing to speak of "harm-reduction" involved a contradiction. Furthermore, both speakers obviously feel that society should care about drug addiction and those affected by it, but again "shoulds" involve moral notions. It seemed that neither speaker understood ethics or the ethical notions implicit in the terms which they consistently used in speaking of drug abuse and its treatment.
The suggestion that harm-reduction strategies, however well intentioned, be "shrouded in political ambiguity" is in itself dishonest and therefore immoral. Until we are prepared to face the moral issues underlying drug addiction instead of hiding behind ambiguity, the problem is not only going to stay with us, it will get worse. - Yours, etc.,
MÁIRE GARVEY, Johnstown Park, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.