(Dr. David Diewert is a sessional lecturer at Regent College in Vancouver, BC as is involved in various community initiatives.)

1. How do you define "justice"?

I think of justice in social / political / economic terms, rather than
as something particular to the legal realm. It has to do with the
establishment of social relations, governing structures and economic
arrangements such that each member of the community has adequate access
to the resources necessary for life, health and human dignity – i.e.,
the conditions necessary for meaningful participation in the community.
Justice is about ensuring mutual dignity and honor, sharing resources
for sustaining and nurturing life and health, and meaningfully
participating in the processes of social and political decision-making.
It entails the establishment of regulations that ensure adequate care
and sustenance for the most vulnerable and limiting the acquisition of
power and possessions, so that the community’s resources are not
concentrated in the hands of a few, while many go without. There are
rich and varied biblical testimonies to support this kind of
understanding of justice. Another way to express it might be that
biblical justice grounds the possibility for the establishment of
shalom: peace and health.

2. What is your vision of a "just society"?

Given this understanding of justice, a just society would be one in
which dignity and honor, life and health, and meaningful participation
in political decision-making are operative and ensured. This means that
particular attention is given to those who lack these social and
material goods; that they first and foremost are supported, that ways
are opened up for them to participate in society in a meaningful and
honored manner. Again, a just society would put energy and resources
into practically finding ways and means to bring those who are weak and
vulnerable into meaningful social engagement and belonging. A just
society, therefore, would be one in which wealth and power were more or
less evenly distributed, where gross inequalities of resources and
opportunities for participation would not be sanctioned.

3. How would you distinguish between justice and punishment (some don’t)?

Given the views expressed above, justice is not really about punishment
at all. Those who refuse to share their goods with others, those who
dishonor others through violence or greed or inconsiderate, selfish
accumulation of goods and property, those who are indifferent to the
suffering of the weak and the damaged; those who amass power and wealth
in complete disregard for the poor – they are living unjustly and would
need to go through some process of restoration / transformation
(restorative justice).
 
4. Given your commitment to justice, give us your perspective on the safe injection sites in Vancouver.

The safe injection site in Vancouver is one part of what should be a
larger strategy of health promotion in the city. Given the unacceptable
spread of fatal diseases (HIV, Hep C) among injection drug users in the
city in the past decade, and the horrific number of overdose deaths
within this same population, the safe injection site (SIS) is a
long-overdue response. Its main purpose is to halt the spread of these
diseases by providing clean injecting equipment, and with medical staff
on hand, it allows immediate intervention should an overdose occur.
This initiative, therefore, is one that saves lives and offers some
protection against the spread of deadly diseases. Its life-promoting
character makes it an important part of any concern for social justice
within the city. It is one way to keep people within a very vulnerable
population of our city from dying suddenly from an overdose or slowly
from a fatal and costly disease. The safe site has been a crucial and
important response to a public health emergency in our city. I only
wish it had come sooner.

5. Randy White reports that the Safe Injection sites in Europe
"socially ghetto-ize" the communities and nurture the drug culture. Do
you think that’s a misrepresentation — or do you see different
possibilities in Vancouver?

I can’t say about Europe (where there are dozens of safe injections
sites; is this the result in all of them?). Social ghettoization has
been a reality in the Downtown Eastside for a long time, long before
the SIS came into being. It’s the result of a number of factors –
extreme poverty, substantial mental illness, clustering of services,
social demonization, etc. I would like to see many more SIS projects up
and running, in a variety of regions. In fact, most drug use in the
city happens outside the Downtown Eastside; it’s just that there the
extreme poverty keeps it in the open where people can see it. Many
other regions in the lower mainland have a massive number of drug users
who might benefit from a SIS (New Westminster, Surrey), but most
neighborhoods don’t want one in their area. Nor do other communities
want poor, homeless, sick, mentally ill people in their neighborhood.
Social ghettoization is first and foremost the result of society’s
distain and disregard for the weak and the poor of our city; they don’t
want them (or facilities that might bring them) in their neighborhoods.

As for promoting the drug culture, there are a myriad of factors at
work here; the SIS is not one of them. People don’t travel to Main and
Hastings to use the SIS; they come to buy drugs. Why people use drugs
and its prevalence in our world is a much bigger question. At root I
think it has to do with the absence of justice and shalom, and the loss
of belonging and of meaning – in addition to the fact that it is big
business and many in places of power and influence want it to continue.
The negative response of the US drug czars to the SIS is not because
they care about keeping people who use drugs alive, but because it cuts
into their “War on Drugs” budget. On both the production and
enforcement side of the drug issue there is huge money and investment.
That’s what promotes the drug culture, not a simple SIS facility on the
100 block Hastings Street.

6. What do you believe that opponents of injection sites are "not
getting" about this issue? I.e. What do you perceive to be their blind
spots. Why?

I’m not sure. Perhaps it is misinformation or misunderstanding. As I
said, the SIS is simply a place where entrenched drug users can inject
without getting infected or dying from an overdose. It is a place where
users make a step of self-care, which may one day turn into a move
towards getting clean from drug use. That is a huge step and one that
takes most people many smaller steps in-between. Taking care of
themselves by shooting safely is one small step. As the saying goes,
dead people don’t detox. The SIS is s place that may keep people alive
long enough to make it to the next step. And if not, it is still a
place that sustains life and promotes health. I have friends in the
Downtown Eastside, and I’m glad they use the SIS to inject. They are
not ready to stop using; yet I care about them and don’t want them to
die or contract a deadly disease. Perhaps the blind spot is that the
drugs being consumed are still illegal. Here I think we need to move to
a medical rather than a criminal framework for viewing this issue. The
SIS is a means of reducing personal and social harm connected with drug
use; it is a social health response to a social health issue.

Of course there is much more that could be said, around the larger
social issues of addictions of all kinds, the legal issues around licit
and illicit drugs, the loss of belonging and meaningful social –
political participation, etc. These are all broadly speaking issues of
justice.