Street-Level Effects of Local Drug Policy on Marginalization and Hardening: An Ethnographic Study Among Chronic Drug Users

Among the 47 options reviewed in this book, most show some evidence of effectiveness in at least one country, but the evidence is less than definitive for many others, either because the interventions are ineffective, or the research is inadequate. Unfortunately, policies that have shown little or no evidence of effectiveness continue to be the preferred options of many countries and international organizations. The evidence reviewed in this book supports two overarching conclusions. First, an integrated and balanced approach to evidence-informed drug policy is more likely to benefit the public good than uncoordinated efforts to reduce drug supply and demand. Second, by shifting the emphasis toward a public health approach, it may be possible to reduce the extent of illicit drug use, prevent the escalation of new epidemics, and avoid the unintended consequences arising from the marginalization of drug users through severe criminal penalties.

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Shadow Committees: On “Drug User Voice,” Representation, and Mobilization in a Norwegian Drug Policy Reform

Contemporary Drug Problems ◽

10.1177/00914509211003731 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 009145092110037

Author(s):

Aleksandra Bartoszko

Keyword(s):

Drug User ◽

Drug Policy ◽

Drug Users ◽

Policy Reform ◽

Political Representation ◽

Illegal Drug Use ◽

Conservative Policy ◽

Political Landscapes ◽

Alternative Organization ◽

Drug Policy Reform

Until recently, Norway remained immovable on its conservative policy that illegal drug use is a crime. In 2018, the Health Minister appointed an inquiry commission to design a less restrictive drug policy, which included two “drug user representatives.” But the Minister’s choices for these posts met massive dissatisfaction from some drug users who contended that the representatives “are not real drug users” and do not “speak for” nor “act on the behalf” of their experiences and opinions. They mobilized to establish an alternative organization, the Shadow Committee, to propose a drug policy reform shaped by “the user voices” and “not polluted by political compromises.” Yet, while performing a labor of difference, this committee, too, became caught in conflicting landscapes of representation with some members contesting strategic solidarity. Based on this case, and an ethnographic fieldwork among the protesters, this article investigates the concept of representation as understood, contested and applied by “drug users.” Exploring how they relate to “user voices” and question the authenticity of some of “user representatives,” I highlight how changing political landscapes affect understandings of representation and shape political, individual and collective forms of involvement. I draw on Pitkin’s political philosophy and apply the classical categorization of political representation to suggest reconsidering the governing assumptions regarding “user representatives” that increasingly inform drug and treatment policies in Norway. I ask if the concept of representation itself may be a barrier to meaningful involvement.

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Non-violent drug users should face no penalty—a call from the Global Commission on Drug Policy

BMJ ◽

10.1136/bmj.i5921 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. i5921 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ruth Dreifuss ◽

Pavel Bém

Keyword(s):

Drug Policy ◽

Drug Users

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Surveillance cultures, chains and holes in street level networking: dealing with drug users in Amsterdam (Netherlands) and Porto Alegre (Brazil)

Surveillance & Society ◽

10.24908/ss.v13i3/4.5352 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 13 (3/4) ◽

pp. 497-511 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Rafaela Rigoni

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

Information Exchange ◽

Drug Users ◽

Illicit Drugs ◽

Participant Observation ◽

Surveillance Culture ◽

Porto Alegre ◽

Systematic Screening ◽

Street Level ◽

Surveillance Cultures

If surveillance is understood as a complex multi-dimensional process, then collaboration between health, social and law enforcement sectors can be viewed as a part of the surveillance culture of particular societies and urban settings. Policies towards illicit drugs usually build on a two-track approach—public health and public order—with different objectives that have to be negotiated daily by street level workers in the light of their differing beliefs on drug use. This paper brings examples of collaboration and non-collaboration among workers from social, health and law enforcement agencies in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Porto Alegre, Brazil in their daily interactions with drug users, to analyze the types of surveillance arising from these negotiations. The study utilizes results from 80 in-depth interviews with street level workers and 800 hours of participant observation carried out from February 2010 until March 2011, equally divided between the two cities. Different cultures of surveillance produce diverse state-citizen approaches in terms of coercion, care, and rights. In Amsterdam, close collaboration and information exchange among workers produce a ‘chain’ surveillance culture: an intensive screening allows drug users to have more access to care, yet, at the same time this can produce excessive control over users’ lives. In Porto Alegre, by contrast, insufficient collaboration produces a surveillance culture of ‘holes’: less systematic screening and lack of information sharing allows users to slip out of care, and of workers’ surveillance sight. Historically, though coming from apparently opposite extremes in terms of drug surveillance (respectively permissive and controlling), both Amsterdam and Porto Alegre in practice show surveillance cultures which combine care and order. Combinations, however, vary according to different assemblages between actors concerned with transforming drug users’ lives.

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Examining the relationship between ethnicity and the use of drug-related services: an ethnographic study of Nepali drug users in Hong Kong

Substance Abuse and Rehabilitation ◽

10.2147/sar.s61885 ◽

2014 ◽

pp. 53 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Wai Man Tang

Keyword(s):

Hong Kong ◽

Drug Users ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Related Services ◽

The Relationship

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Under the bridge in Tehran: Addiction, Poverty and Capital

Ethnography ◽

10.1177/1466138118787534 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 151-175 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Maziyar Ghiabi

Keyword(s):

Drug Users ◽

Primary Objective ◽

The State ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Urban Life ◽

The Political ◽

The City ◽

The Way

The article provides an ethnographic study of the lives of the ‘dangerous class’ of drug users based on fieldwork carried out among different drug using ‘communities’ in Tehran between 2012 and 2016. The primary objective is to articulate the presence of this category within modern Iran, its uses and its abuses in relation to the political. What drives the narration is not only the account of this lumpen, plebeian group vis à vis the state, but also the way power has affected their agency, their capacity to be present in the city, and how capital/power and the dangerous/lumpen life come to terms, to conflict, and to the production of new situations which affect urban life.

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Response to Volkow P et al. – Cross-border paid plasma donation among injection drug users in two Mexico–U.S. border cities – International Journal of Drug Policy 20 (2009) 409–412

International Journal of Drug Policy ◽

10.1016/j.drugpo.2010.04.005 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 21 (5) ◽

pp. 343-344 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Joshua Penrod ◽

Mary Gustafson ◽

George Schreiber ◽

Jan Bult ◽

Albert Farrugia

Keyword(s):

Drug Policy ◽

Injection Drug Users ◽

Drug Users ◽

Injection Drug ◽

Cross Border ◽

Plasma Donation

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Beyond China’s drug century: Yunnan’s first therapeutic community and narratives of drug treatment and mental health care

Transcultural Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/1363461518764488 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 56 (3) ◽

pp. 471-490 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sandra Teresa Hyde

Keyword(s):

Drug Use ◽

21St Century ◽

Cultural Change ◽

Drug Users ◽

Therapeutic Community ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Early 19Th Century ◽

Humanitarian Interventions ◽

Carlos Rojas ◽

Economic Boom

China is experiencing rapid cultural change and new forms of sociability that are accompanied by social problems and novel humanitarian interventions that have been formulated to address those problems. The pressure related to the rapid transformation of the countryside into mid-level cities has led to recreational drug-use as a means of escape. These illegal drugs have greased the wheels of what I call an affective biopolitics that has influenced Chinese citizens. Carlos Rojas argues that development in China results from the effects of discrete protocols, or practices that stem from tensions between capital and labor, governmentality and biopolitics, and nationalism and globalization. To tease out the particulars of Rojas’ protocols and practices, in this article, I first review two historical periods: 1) the rise and fall of opium consumption in the early 19th century, and 2) the 21st-century psychology boom. I use these two literature reviews to set the stage to discuss my ethnographic study of Sunlight, China’s first residential therapeutic community for drug users in Yunnan Province. Sunlight’s residents and founders provide a unique window into local everyday drug use at a particular time in China’s economic boom, from 2007 through 2015. We know much about China’s opium century but very little about the contemporary context, new consumers who partake in pleasure-consuming drugs, or the reformers who address these 21st-century public health issues.

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Drug User Networks, Coping Strategies, and HIV Prevention in the Community

Journal of Drug Issues ◽

10.1177/002204269502500304 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 25 (3) ◽

pp. 565-581 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Robert Power ◽

Steve Jones ◽

Gerry Kearns ◽

Jenni Ward ◽

Jan Perera

Keyword(s):

Coping Strategies ◽

Drug Users ◽

Illicit Drugs ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

Harm Minimization ◽

Community Based Interventions ◽

The Public ◽

Caribbean Community ◽

Education And Health ◽

Protective Strategies

Qualitative data from England illustrate the way coping strategies form an integral part of the everyday lifestyles of injectors of illicit drugs. Ethnographic investigation of social networks and the rules which underpin them is crucial in devising appropriate community-based interventions. Such networks are characterized by functional and reciprocal relations. Peer education and health advocacy takes place on an informal basis. Key figures who adopt these roles should be encouraged to act as Indigenous Advocates as part of interventions which place drug users and their everyday lives at the core. Rules and social etiquettes of networks are not always positive for the public health agenda, as illustrated by the sharing of injecting paraphernalia and the injecting taboo among the Afro-Caribbean community. Ethnographic study can pinpoint foci for intervention. Harm minimization needs to be promoted using all the resources available, including the informal protective strategies of drug users and outreach interventions aimed at specific issues and targeted toward particular groups.

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