Safe Injection Sites and the Ethic of Harm Reduction

Abstract

While the concept of safe injection sites, which are geared toward addressing harms related to illicit drug consumption and addiction, has been around for several decades—such facilities were operational in the Netherlands as early as the 1970s—it has again been brought to the fore due to developments in California. Other large American cities, such as Philadelphia, have also proposed such sites. The debate over these sites often takes a public policy focus, weighing societal costs and benefits, but these ultimately fail to justify moral liceity. After describing what safe injection sites are and what they seek to accomplish, a general argument in defense of these sites will be constructed based primarily on Andrew Hathaway and Kirk Tousaw. I will argue against such facilities because they are ultimately founded on a framework with a fundamentally flawed consequentialist outlook and because they encourage illicit cooperation in immoral acts.