Why did you highlight the needle exchange. Is that against church doctrine?
Why did you highlight the needle exchange. Is that against church doctrine?>>>
Yes, it promotes drug abuse and the demise of the human spirit and human dignity and gives the wrong impression to children who will think the govt. and Catholic Church condones drug abuse. Those who use drugs usually steal the money to foster their habit and drug needles will only make the problem worse. And, the church is almost sure that the state will force Catholic Hospitals, Shelters, etc. to be the sites for these exchanges. The bill has no provisions for drug rehab.
The underlying purpose of the change, however, is to permit needle exchange programs to take place for intravenous drug users. While the New Jersey Catholic Conference has larger concerns with this legislation, there is some immediate potential impact on public and nonpublic school children.
OUR POSITION: There are three major considerations for our opposition to this legislation with respect to children:
1. The decriminalization of the possession and sale of hypodermic syringes and needles (that is the removal of their definition from the term “drug paraphernalia”) opens the way for needle exchange programs for addicts in New Jersey. Such programs send a message of tolerance for intravenous drug use to children in both public and nonpublic schools.
2. The individuals who will be able to sell and purchase such syringes and needles will, in the future, be able to do so at established sites. These sites may be accessible through drug-free school zones. Will the next step be to provide lesser degrees of penalties for individuals who venture into these drug-free school zones as a result of their efforts to receive clean needles?
3. The New Jersey Catholic Conference has been involved extensively with treatment programs for individuals who have drug addictions. Although our goal would be to eliminate the need for these programs by eliminating the threats opposed by such afflictions such as HIV/AIDS, we believe that the government should mandate treatment programs if any needle exchange program is to be adopted. S-2794 will permit such needle exchange programs to take place without any mandatory treatment program.
http://www.njcathconf.com/LegActionAlerts/Social_Issues/S2794NeedleExchangeLtrhd%20Dec1.htm