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I'm not a zealot, you won't see me holding a copy of Atlas Shrugged while putting a padlock on a public park.
In the UK, I've never seen Narcan dispensers in public. I presume only paramedics would carry them.
In the US? I've heard of them being in half the stores, people carrying them just in case, and so on.
If someone feels morally obliged to whip it out when they see an addict ODing, why on earth would I condemn the kindness of strangers? If they weren't carrying anything, and didn't do more than call 911 and walk away, I won't condemn them either.
Don't get me wrong. I think the opioid epidemic in the US needs addressing. I'm all for rounding up junkies and making them take their meds and go through a rehab program, but because they're criminals, a public nuisance and causing social chaos, not because they're drug-users.
I also think that in countries with publicly funded healthcare, states should have the right to deny coverage to those who refuse to address behaviors that impose exorbitant costs. You might be saved and treated free of charge the first time, but if you don't comply with further advice, then I don't object to the public washing their hands of you as a lost cause.
Some diseases are unavoidable, it's not like anyone asks to develop Type 1 diabetes or schizophrenia. I'm far more sympathetic to such cases, but not sane people who know the risks of addiction and show no signs of stopping, while expecting the rest of us to pick up after them.
Because their kindness results in more unkindness directed at others by the addicts they save.
I do not think, from a proper consequentialist position that considers n-th order effects, that holding people liable for saving strangers is a good idea. In fact, I'd say it's a terrible idea.
If a cardiologist operates on, and saves, someone who goes on to conduct a genocide in Angola, would you hold him liable? Assume he didn't know the fellow beyond hearing he was a rich African who had flown into London for surgery, and paid for the best. Do you want us doing background checks on patients, as extending this line of reasoning would entail?
For the average bleeding heart: If they don't Narcan someone, I don't hold them responsible. If they do, then I think their general desire to be pro-social should be recognized, even if in this particular case, the person wasn't worth saving. That is not always a given, someone who is a recreational drug user but isn't a homeless junkie might easily OD on fent accidentally contaminating their coke. Far too many members of net productive members of society would be caught in the crossfire. Nary a day goes by when you hear of some young yuppy dying in a fancy club or house party from the same.
Does he have any reason to believe this will be the result?
The result of saving some random street addict from his own overdose are pretty predictable: with high probability, more petty crime, maybe some major crime, until the addict manages to overdose again.
As for the yuppies, I'm not crying for them either.
I edited it to specify he had no reason to suspect so.
I don't seek to hold people doing first aid and resuscitation liable, or punish them, for both consequentialist reasons at wider scale, and because I don't see why we wouldn't then arrest a fast food worker who sold a junkie a burger and prevented him from starving to death. Even if someone gave them food for free, out of pity.
I'd rather put the onus on society for not taking the junkie off the street in the first place, so that if you saw someone in a medical crisis on the streets, you wouldn't have any qualms about them being someone worth saving.
Giving a street junkie naloxone is specifically saving them from the direct consequences of the actions which make them trouble for others; in this way, it's purer than ordinary first aid or feeding someone. A "do-gooder" doing this for some stranger is not doing good.
If the onus is on society, it is on no one.
Substitute government for "society". That's what I meant.
There are officials entrusted with tending to the commons, enforcing laws, and tackling bad actors. They're the ones who are directly nominated (and paid) to make the mess go away, and should be taken to task for their failure. Individual people in society shouldn't be obligated to be paramedics, firefighters or the like, if they want to help, then I don't hold it against them.
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