Pub Date : 2021-09-06DOI: 10.1177/00914509211038352
N. Campbell
Fentanyl Test Strips (FTS) make possible rapid visual determinations of whether or not fentanyl is present in a given drug supply. This article places FTS within the historical contexts of drug-checking for drug control, overdose prevention, and harm reduction in North America. Following Fentanyl Test Strips (FTS) as artifacts made to signify and enact possibilities other than those for which they were developed and licensed, this article contributes to socio-material theorization of drug control, overdose prevention, and harm reduction in relation to the agency, empowerment, and liveliness of drug users through enactment of the policy and practice of off-label use. The socio-materialities of FTS co-constitute their semiotics and their interpretive flexibility within prevailing forms of evidence-based reasoning that have transformed clinical practice over past decades. They offer new renderings of facticity and artifactuality, which I connect to Ludwik Fleck’s work on the Wasserman test in Genesis and Structure of a Scientific Fact. Reading both the materiality and the semiotics of FTS as artifacts provides a hybrid concept of socio-materiality attentive to the social and material relations embedded in and embodied by FTS, and those who use them in both intended and unintended ways. Such uses differ from individualized expertise and evaluation taken as contributory to the evidence base of the global North. The political work of articulating between different grounds of struggle is underway among those seeking to distribute FTS more widely. But it is their sociomaterial flexibility that makes these artifacts move into new relations that sustains the more affective and artisanal forms of political and cultural recognition characterized in this article as “artifactual” use for an alterbiopolitics.
{"title":"Enacting Fentanyl Tests Strips for Overdose Prevention: The Socio-Material Transformation of “Suspect Technologies” into “Technologies of Solidarity”","authors":"N. Campbell","doi":"10.1177/00914509211038352","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211038352","url":null,"abstract":"Fentanyl Test Strips (FTS) make possible rapid visual determinations of whether or not fentanyl is present in a given drug supply. This article places FTS within the historical contexts of drug-checking for drug control, overdose prevention, and harm reduction in North America. Following Fentanyl Test Strips (FTS) as artifacts made to signify and enact possibilities other than those for which they were developed and licensed, this article contributes to socio-material theorization of drug control, overdose prevention, and harm reduction in relation to the agency, empowerment, and liveliness of drug users through enactment of the policy and practice of off-label use. The socio-materialities of FTS co-constitute their semiotics and their interpretive flexibility within prevailing forms of evidence-based reasoning that have transformed clinical practice over past decades. They offer new renderings of facticity and artifactuality, which I connect to Ludwik Fleck’s work on the Wasserman test in Genesis and Structure of a Scientific Fact. Reading both the materiality and the semiotics of FTS as artifacts provides a hybrid concept of socio-materiality attentive to the social and material relations embedded in and embodied by FTS, and those who use them in both intended and unintended ways. Such uses differ from individualized expertise and evaluation taken as contributory to the evidence base of the global North. The political work of articulating between different grounds of struggle is underway among those seeking to distribute FTS more widely. But it is their sociomaterial flexibility that makes these artifacts move into new relations that sustains the more affective and artisanal forms of political and cultural recognition characterized in this article as “artifactual” use for an alterbiopolitics.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"305 - 326"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49087857","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00914509211033921
Kostas Skliamis, A. Benschop, N. Liebregts, D. Korf
This article examines to what extent and how cannabis users in different countries, with different cannabis legislation and policies practice normalization and self-regulation of cannabis use in everyday life. Data were collected in a survey among a convenience sample of 1,225 last-year cannabis users aged 18–40 from seven European countries, with cannabis policies ranging from relatively liberal to more punitive. Participants were recruited in or in the vicinity of Dutch coffeeshops. We assessed whether cannabis users experience and interpret formal control and informal social norms differently across countries with different cannabis policies. The findings suggest that many cannabis users set boundaries to control their use. Irrespective of national cannabis policy, using cannabis in private settings and setting risk avoidance rules were equally predominant in all countries. This illustrates that many cannabis users are concerned with responsible use, demonstrating the importance that they attach to discretion. Overall, self-regulation was highest in the most liberal country (the Netherlands). This indicates that liberalization does not automatically lead to chaotic or otherwise problematic use as critics of the policy have predicted, as the diminishing of formal control (law enforcement) is accompanied by increased importance of informal norms and stronger self-regulation. In understanding risk-management, societal tolerance of cannabis use seems more important than cross-national differences in cannabis policy. The setting of cannabis use and self-regulation rules were strongly associated with frequency of use. Daily users were less selective in choosing settings of use and less strict in self-regulation rules. Further differences in age, gender, and household status underline the relevance of a differentiated, more nuanced understanding of cannabis normalization.
{"title":"Where, When and With Whom: Cannabis Use, Settings and Self-Regulation Rules","authors":"Kostas Skliamis, A. Benschop, N. Liebregts, D. Korf","doi":"10.1177/00914509211033921","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211033921","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines to what extent and how cannabis users in different countries, with different cannabis legislation and policies practice normalization and self-regulation of cannabis use in everyday life. Data were collected in a survey among a convenience sample of 1,225 last-year cannabis users aged 18–40 from seven European countries, with cannabis policies ranging from relatively liberal to more punitive. Participants were recruited in or in the vicinity of Dutch coffeeshops. We assessed whether cannabis users experience and interpret formal control and informal social norms differently across countries with different cannabis policies. The findings suggest that many cannabis users set boundaries to control their use. Irrespective of national cannabis policy, using cannabis in private settings and setting risk avoidance rules were equally predominant in all countries. This illustrates that many cannabis users are concerned with responsible use, demonstrating the importance that they attach to discretion. Overall, self-regulation was highest in the most liberal country (the Netherlands). This indicates that liberalization does not automatically lead to chaotic or otherwise problematic use as critics of the policy have predicted, as the diminishing of formal control (law enforcement) is accompanied by increased importance of informal norms and stronger self-regulation. In understanding risk-management, societal tolerance of cannabis use seems more important than cross-national differences in cannabis policy. The setting of cannabis use and self-regulation rules were strongly associated with frequency of use. Daily users were less selective in choosing settings of use and less strict in self-regulation rules. Further differences in age, gender, and household status underline the relevance of a differentiated, more nuanced understanding of cannabis normalization.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"241 - 259"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211033921","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43680669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00914509211035242
Kirsten Gibson, F. Hutton
Global evidence suggests that experiences of access to Needle Exchange services are gendered and that women who inject drugs (WWID) access needle exchange services differently to men. Despite being a significant proportion of injecting drug users, women’s voices and experiences have often been silenced in studies around harm reduction service provision, hampering the development of harm reduction services for WWID. This article highlights the experiences of four women and one trans man who have previously injected drugs, in accessing needle exchange programmes (NEPs) in a New Zealand context. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were carried out with five participants and thematic analysis of the interviews produced three core themes: how stigma permeates WWIDs’ lives; barriers in accessing needle exchange services; and how experiences within a drugs context are gendered. Stigma was an overwhelming issue affecting WWID which also acted as a barrier to their access of NEPs. The WWID in our study in terms of Goffman’s original theorizing were “doubly discredited” as well as “precariously discreditable” due to their gender and injection drug using status. The participants keenly felt their stigmatized status through interactions with pharmacy-based needle exchange staff, perceiving that pharmacy staff viewed them as more contaminated than their male counterparts. Gendered relationships were also noted in injection practices, although initiation for this group of WWID was done by intimate partners as well as friends, dispelling the stereotype of WWID as passive victims. Some participants also learnt to self-inject which gave them a sense of empowerment and freedom as they did not have to rely on others to help them. The social structures that support stigmatizing tropes about WWID need to be addressed as well as more local interventions to prevent stigma in NEPs, alongside women focused services.
{"title":"Women Who Inject Drugs (WWID): Stigma, Gender and Barriers to Needle Exchange Programmes (NEPs)","authors":"Kirsten Gibson, F. Hutton","doi":"10.1177/00914509211035242","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211035242","url":null,"abstract":"Global evidence suggests that experiences of access to Needle Exchange services are gendered and that women who inject drugs (WWID) access needle exchange services differently to men. Despite being a significant proportion of injecting drug users, women’s voices and experiences have often been silenced in studies around harm reduction service provision, hampering the development of harm reduction services for WWID. This article highlights the experiences of four women and one trans man who have previously injected drugs, in accessing needle exchange programmes (NEPs) in a New Zealand context. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were carried out with five participants and thematic analysis of the interviews produced three core themes: how stigma permeates WWIDs’ lives; barriers in accessing needle exchange services; and how experiences within a drugs context are gendered. Stigma was an overwhelming issue affecting WWID which also acted as a barrier to their access of NEPs. The WWID in our study in terms of Goffman’s original theorizing were “doubly discredited” as well as “precariously discreditable” due to their gender and injection drug using status. The participants keenly felt their stigmatized status through interactions with pharmacy-based needle exchange staff, perceiving that pharmacy staff viewed them as more contaminated than their male counterparts. Gendered relationships were also noted in injection practices, although initiation for this group of WWID was done by intimate partners as well as friends, dispelling the stereotype of WWID as passive victims. Some participants also learnt to self-inject which gave them a sense of empowerment and freedom as they did not have to rely on others to help them. The social structures that support stigmatizing tropes about WWID need to be addressed as well as more local interventions to prevent stigma in NEPs, alongside women focused services.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"276 - 296"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211035242","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48557589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00914509211034006
Shana Harris
Argentina’s national drug law, Law 23.737, has been in effect since 1989. Based on prohibitionist drug policy, this law was intended to severely punish drug traffickers and protect the public from drug use-related health concerns. However, it has failed to achieve these goals, and instead targets people who use drugs (PWUD) and brands them “criminals.” In response, the Argentine government announced its intent to reform Law 23.737 in 2008, sparking widespread debate among health, legal, and social service professionals. This article discusses this debate from the perspective of harm reductionists, those who work to reduce the negative effects of drug use rather than eliminate drug use or ensure abstinence. Drawing on archival research and 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Argentina, this article examines the positionality of harm reductionists in this drug policy reform, particularly the controversial proposal to decriminalize drug possession for personal use. Demonstrating their contention that Argentina’s legal apparatus is a major contributor to PWUD’s discrimination, stigmatization, and isolation from health and social services, I argue that challenging these problems through policy engagement allows Argentine harm reductionists to draw attention to the broader question of PWUD’s rights and to ultimately recast PWUD as rights-bearing citizens.
{"title":"Possessing Drugs, Possessing Rights: Harm Reduction and Drug Policy Reform in Argentina","authors":"Shana Harris","doi":"10.1177/00914509211034006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211034006","url":null,"abstract":"Argentina’s national drug law, Law 23.737, has been in effect since 1989. Based on prohibitionist drug policy, this law was intended to severely punish drug traffickers and protect the public from drug use-related health concerns. However, it has failed to achieve these goals, and instead targets people who use drugs (PWUD) and brands them “criminals.” In response, the Argentine government announced its intent to reform Law 23.737 in 2008, sparking widespread debate among health, legal, and social service professionals. This article discusses this debate from the perspective of harm reductionists, those who work to reduce the negative effects of drug use rather than eliminate drug use or ensure abstinence. Drawing on archival research and 16 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Argentina, this article examines the positionality of harm reductionists in this drug policy reform, particularly the controversial proposal to decriminalize drug possession for personal use. Demonstrating their contention that Argentina’s legal apparatus is a major contributor to PWUD’s discrimination, stigmatization, and isolation from health and social services, I argue that challenging these problems through policy engagement allows Argentine harm reductionists to draw attention to the broader question of PWUD’s rights and to ultimately recast PWUD as rights-bearing citizens.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"260 - 275"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211034006","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46606652","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00914509211034653
G. Hunt
{"title":"Geoffrey Hunt, Contemporary Drug Problems Board Member, Wins Major International Award","authors":"G. Hunt","doi":"10.1177/00914509211034653","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211034653","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"203 - 203"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211034653","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46820500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00914509211027075
In Robertson, Hildegunn Sagvaag, L. B. Selseng, Sverre Nesvaag
The concepts of identity and recovery capital are recognized as being an embedded part of moving away from a life dominated by drug use. However, the link between these two concepts and the effect of broader social structures, and the normative assumptions underpinning the condition of recovery, is less explored. This article focuses on the social practices of everyday life in the foreground of identity formation, meaning that “who I am” is an inseparable part of “what I do.” A narrative approach was employed to analyze qualitative follow-up data extracted from 48 in-depth interviews with 17 males and females with drug-using experience that were conducted posttreatment on three separate occasions over a period of 2.5 years. Theories of identity formation were employed to analyze the interdependent dynamic between social structure, persona and social resources, and way of life and identity. The analyses identified four narratives related to how people present themselves through the process of changing practices. Following the work of Honneth, we argue that the positive identity formation revealed in these narratives is best understood as a struggle for recognition via the principle of achievement. However, the participants’ self-narratives reflected cultural stories—specified as formula stories—of “normality,” “addiction,” and the “addict,” which work into the concepts of self and confine options of storying experiences during the recovery process. This study demonstrate that the process of recovery is culturally embedded and constitutes a process of adaption to conventional social positions and roles. We suggest challenging dominant discourses related to “addiction as a disease” and “normality” in order to prevent stigma related to drug use and recovery. In so doing, it may contribute to broaden conditions for identity (trans)formation for people in recovery.
{"title":"Narratives of Change: Identity and Recognition Dynamics in the Process of Moving Away From a Life Dominated by Drug Use","authors":"In Robertson, Hildegunn Sagvaag, L. B. Selseng, Sverre Nesvaag","doi":"10.1177/00914509211027075","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211027075","url":null,"abstract":"The concepts of identity and recovery capital are recognized as being an embedded part of moving away from a life dominated by drug use. However, the link between these two concepts and the effect of broader social structures, and the normative assumptions underpinning the condition of recovery, is less explored. This article focuses on the social practices of everyday life in the foreground of identity formation, meaning that “who I am” is an inseparable part of “what I do.” A narrative approach was employed to analyze qualitative follow-up data extracted from 48 in-depth interviews with 17 males and females with drug-using experience that were conducted posttreatment on three separate occasions over a period of 2.5 years. Theories of identity formation were employed to analyze the interdependent dynamic between social structure, persona and social resources, and way of life and identity. The analyses identified four narratives related to how people present themselves through the process of changing practices. Following the work of Honneth, we argue that the positive identity formation revealed in these narratives is best understood as a struggle for recognition via the principle of achievement. However, the participants’ self-narratives reflected cultural stories—specified as formula stories—of “normality,” “addiction,” and the “addict,” which work into the concepts of self and confine options of storying experiences during the recovery process. This study demonstrate that the process of recovery is culturally embedded and constitutes a process of adaption to conventional social positions and roles. We suggest challenging dominant discourses related to “addiction as a disease” and “normality” in order to prevent stigma related to drug use and recovery. In so doing, it may contribute to broaden conditions for identity (trans)formation for people in recovery.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"204 - 222"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211027075","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45892722","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1177/00914509211031092
Victoria F. Burns
Fueled by stigma, individuals in, or seeking recovery from addiction struggle with disclosure across personal and professional life domains. Guided by the concepts of stigma and alcogenic environments, this paper explores the risks, benefits, and paradoxes of disclosing an alcohol addiction recovery identity from the perspective of an assistant professor in a Canadian university context. It argues that disclosure can be a promising way to strengthen personal recovery, combat self and public stigma, help build community, model authenticity and transparency in teaching and research roles, shift university drinking culture, and provide a safer environment for others to disclose and/or seek help for addiction. Policy and practice recommendations are provided.
{"title":"The Sober Professor: Reflections on the Sober Paradox, Sober Phobia, and Disclosing an Alcohol Recovery Identity in Academia","authors":"Victoria F. Burns","doi":"10.1177/00914509211031092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211031092","url":null,"abstract":"Fueled by stigma, individuals in, or seeking recovery from addiction struggle with disclosure across personal and professional life domains. Guided by the concepts of stigma and alcogenic environments, this paper explores the risks, benefits, and paradoxes of disclosing an alcohol addiction recovery identity from the perspective of an assistant professor in a Canadian university context. It argues that disclosure can be a promising way to strengthen personal recovery, combat self and public stigma, help build community, model authenticity and transparency in teaching and research roles, shift university drinking culture, and provide a safer environment for others to disclose and/or seek help for addiction. Policy and practice recommendations are provided.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"223 - 240"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211031092","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49000598","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-04DOI: 10.1177/00914509211035487
J. Carroll
Drug checking is an evidence-based strategy for overdose prevention that continues to operate (where it operates) in a legal “gray zone” due to the legal classification of some drug checking tools as drug paraphernalia—the purview of law enforcement, not public health. This article takes the emergence of fentanyl in the U.S. drug supply as a starting point for examining two closely related questions about drug checking and drug market expertise. First, how is the epistemic authority of law enforcement over the material realities of the drug market produced? Second, in the context of that authority, what are the socio-political implications of technologically advanced drug checking instruments in the hands of people who use drugs? The expertise that people who use drugs maintain about the nature of illicit drug market and how to navigate the illicit drug supply has long been discounted as untrustworthy, irrational, or otherwise invalid. Yet, increased access to drug checking tools has the potential to afford the knowledge produced by people who use drugs a technological validity it has never before enjoyed. In this article, I engage with theories of knowledge production and ontological standpoint from the field of science, technology, and society studies to examine how law enforcement produces and maintains epistemic authority over the illicit drug market and to explore how drug checking technologies enable new forms of knowledge production. I argue that drug checking be viewed as a form of social resistance against law enforcement’s epistemological authority and as a refuge against the harms produced by drug criminalization.
{"title":"Auras of Detection: Power and Knowledge in Drug Prohibition","authors":"J. Carroll","doi":"10.1177/00914509211035487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211035487","url":null,"abstract":"Drug checking is an evidence-based strategy for overdose prevention that continues to operate (where it operates) in a legal “gray zone” due to the legal classification of some drug checking tools as drug paraphernalia—the purview of law enforcement, not public health. This article takes the emergence of fentanyl in the U.S. drug supply as a starting point for examining two closely related questions about drug checking and drug market expertise. First, how is the epistemic authority of law enforcement over the material realities of the drug market produced? Second, in the context of that authority, what are the socio-political implications of technologically advanced drug checking instruments in the hands of people who use drugs? The expertise that people who use drugs maintain about the nature of illicit drug market and how to navigate the illicit drug supply has long been discounted as untrustworthy, irrational, or otherwise invalid. Yet, increased access to drug checking tools has the potential to afford the knowledge produced by people who use drugs a technological validity it has never before enjoyed. In this article, I engage with theories of knowledge production and ontological standpoint from the field of science, technology, and society studies to examine how law enforcement produces and maintains epistemic authority over the illicit drug market and to explore how drug checking technologies enable new forms of knowledge production. I argue that drug checking be viewed as a form of social resistance against law enforcement’s epistemological authority and as a refuge against the harms produced by drug criminalization.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"48 1","pages":"327 - 345"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211035487","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44068465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-06DOI: 10.1177/00914509211031609
Samuel Brookfield, L. Selvey, L. Maher, L. Fitzgerald
The orthodox construction of agency within addiction recovery discourse is built upon a fault line between two conflicting principles: that people who use drugs in harmful ways cannot control their behavior, but that they can also regain that control through intentional effort. The conceptual confusion inherent in this framework can harm people using drugs by producing inadequate accounts of commonly invoked aspects of recovery such as “triggers,” “self-control,” and “addictive behavior.” This ethnographic study involved qualitative interviews and observations with nine people over 6 months as they engaged in recovery from harmful methamphetamine use, to explore their experiences of agency, and how these experiences could be shaped by the discourse of volition/compulsion. Thematic analysis was conducted using a posthumanist theoretical framework. We found “relapse triggers” to be diffuse aspects of particular environments rather than specific stimuli, able to provoke what would normally be considered conscious, intentional behavior rather than only autonomic or “mindless” processes. Participants also described their identities as internally divided and multiple, with drug related behaviors separated from their true selves. Finally, agency was experienced as emergent and distributed rather than as a particular resource located within individuals. Attending to these complex experiences of agency can help resolve the tension between loss of control and personal responsibility for people who use drugs, by renegotiating the historically imposed categorical distinction between volitional and compelled actions, and the cultural constructions of “addictive” versus “normal” behavior.
{"title":"“There’s No Sense to It”: A Posthumanist Ethnography of Agency in Methamphetamine Recovery","authors":"Samuel Brookfield, L. Selvey, L. Maher, L. Fitzgerald","doi":"10.1177/00914509211031609","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00914509211031609","url":null,"abstract":"The orthodox construction of agency within addiction recovery discourse is built upon a fault line between two conflicting principles: that people who use drugs in harmful ways cannot control their behavior, but that they can also regain that control through intentional effort. The conceptual confusion inherent in this framework can harm people using drugs by producing inadequate accounts of commonly invoked aspects of recovery such as “triggers,” “self-control,” and “addictive behavior.” This ethnographic study involved qualitative interviews and observations with nine people over 6 months as they engaged in recovery from harmful methamphetamine use, to explore their experiences of agency, and how these experiences could be shaped by the discourse of volition/compulsion. Thematic analysis was conducted using a posthumanist theoretical framework. We found “relapse triggers” to be diffuse aspects of particular environments rather than specific stimuli, able to provoke what would normally be considered conscious, intentional behavior rather than only autonomic or “mindless” processes. Participants also described their identities as internally divided and multiple, with drug related behaviors separated from their true selves. Finally, agency was experienced as emergent and distributed rather than as a particular resource located within individuals. Attending to these complex experiences of agency can help resolve the tension between loss of control and personal responsibility for people who use drugs, by renegotiating the historically imposed categorical distinction between volitional and compelled actions, and the cultural constructions of “addictive” versus “normal” behavior.","PeriodicalId":35813,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Drug Problems","volume":"49 1","pages":"278 - 298"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-07-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/00914509211031609","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41698196","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-18DOI: 10.1177/00914509211009901
M. McCormack, F. Measham, L. Wignall
The relationship between drug use and sexual practice is complex. Significant focus has been placed on risky practices, yet the broader associations between drug use and sexual activities remain elusive outside such contexts. This is despite similar trends of liberalizing attitudes and practices being identified in each area, theorized as the normalization of recreational drug use and the liberalization of consensual sexual practice. In this article, we draw on convenience sample surveys of 966 festival-goers at an English music festival in 2016 and 2019 to assess prevalence of polydrug use and to examine whether people who consume illicit drugs are more likely to engage in sexual behaviors considered more liberal than the traditional norm. We show that people who reported polydrug use in the last 12 months were significantly more likely to engage in non-traditional sexual behaviors, including sex with a friend and anal sex, in that same time period. In combining and comparing two usually distinct discourses, this exploratory study suggests that the normalization of drugs and the liberalization of consensual sexual practices are related and can be conceptualized as part of a broader societal acceptance and cultural accommodation of illicit drug use and particular sexual practices as leisure activities, despite markedly different policy and legal contexts for each activity. We conclude that the concept of “normalization” may be more appropriate to understanding changes in sexuality than “liberalization” in the context of “leisure sex” and call for further cross-disciplinary research on drugs and sex using this approach.
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