Published Oct. 6, 2022
BY EMMA BROWN
As fentanyl deaths have gripped the international community in recent years, government agencies around the world have sought solutions to rising overdose rates, with some implementing safe injection sites and clean supply lines in order to control the use of drugs.
In Vancouver, Canada’s public health system has funded the dispensary of fentanyl in furtherance of their “harm-reduction” strategy, a national plan to reduce drug-related illnesses and overdoses by providing users with safe needles and pharmaceutical grade opioids, according to The New York Times. The program doesn’t encourage users to quit, but rather acknowledges the struggles of overcoming addiction and looks for solutions from there.
Fentanyl, a potent opioid, has contaminated the supply of much of the heroin bought and sold on the black market, and the strength of the substance often leads to accidental overdoses as a result of users’ lack of knowledge about the composition of the drug purchased. In 2020, 91,799 Americans died of drug overdoses, according to the Center for Disease Control. Of those deaths, 75% involved opioids.
Even as overdose rates have risen in the United States, many Americans are hesitant to implement similar “harm-reduction” policies. To assess whether safe injection and dispensary sites should be introduced, one must first analyze the morality of the programs themselves.
In Plato’s telling of a dialogue between Socrates and Protagoras, a Greek teacher, the two debate the merits of akrasia, a Greek term that means acting against a person’s best judgment. Socrates claims that the theory of akrasia is inherently flawed: if someone knows what is best for them, they would act in that manner. He infers that if someone is acting in a particular manner, it must be because they believe that they are doing what is best, or they just don’t care about the morality of their choices. Simply put, the philosopher believes that actions speak louder than words.
Looking at addiction treatment through a Socratic lense, it seems like a complete misjudgement of morality. Harm-reduction programs perpetuate a cycle of substance abuse, allowing addicts to continue to use with no attempt to resolve the root issue. The family members and friends of the fentanyl users continue to watch their loved one live with an addiction, forced to deal with the side effects of their using.
Socrates would claim that people who put drug use over all else believe that they are doing what is right. Yet the philosopher recognizes that causing harm to oneself and others is immoral and, as a result, would find that drug users could not be acting in akrasia and must simply have skewed judgment or priorities instead.
In his book “Metaphysics of Morality,” philosopher Immanuel Kant claimed that intoxication was unethical because it reduced cognitive function, making us no better than animals. Kant believed in a categorical imperative that a theory says each person should develop a strict moral code and live by it, thus his assertion that drug use limits the possibility for rational thought can be interpreted as part of his, as well as his followers’, moral code. As a result, the philosopher would admonish harm reduction programs for perpetuating drug abuse and the deterioration of human cognition.
Though the issue of drug abuse and addiction are complex, it seems that if the options are between ignoring the struggles of users and trying to keep them alive, communities ought to implement harm reduction policies.
