N.Y. Catholic Charities office to offer free needles to drug addicts
February 2, 2010
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February 2, 2010
Catholic Charities of Albany, N.Y., has launched a new program to provide free syringes to intravenous drug users, an unusual move for a church that preaches abstinence for overcoming drug addiction and stanching the spread of HIV/AIDS.
After five years of studying the program, "Project Safe Point" began in two urban locations on Monday (Feb. 1) in the Upstate New York diocese. The project will be funded by $170,000 in grants from New York State.
Sister Maureen Joyce, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Albany, said in a statement: "We view this new direction as an extension of our mission to serve the poor and vulnerable."
Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard approved the needle program, according to the diocese. In a statement, the diocese acknowledged that it may appear to be complicit in drug use, but argued that providing disease-free needles is the lesser of two evils.
"To guide us, the church provides us with the principles of licit cooperation in evil and the counseling of the lesser evil. The sponsorship of Catholic Charities in Project Safe Point, then, is based upon the Church's standard moral principles," the diocesan statement reads.
While a number of secular social service agencies--including 17 in New York--maintain syringe-exchange programs, the project is thought to be a first for a Catholic Charities agency. A request for information from Catholic Charities USA, the national headquarters for 1,700 Catholic Charities institutions and agencies nationwide, was not answered immediately.
Medical studies have documented that needle-exchange programs effectively reduce the spread of blood-borne diseases such as HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C. According to New York State Health Department studies cited by the diocese, in 1990, 50 percent of new AIDS cases were caused by drug use. By 2004, after the introduction of needle-exchange programs, just 7 percent of new AIDS cases were linked to intravenous drug use.
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