Title |
White opioids: Pharmaceutical race and the war on drugs that wasn’t
|
---|---|
Published in |
BioSocieties, June 2017
|
DOI | 10.1057/biosoc.2015.46 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Julie Netherland, Helena Hansen |
Abstract |
The US 'War on Drugs' has had a profound role in reinforcing racial hierarchies. Although Black Americans are no more likely than Whites to use illicit drugs, they are 6-10 times more likely to be incarcerated for drug offenses. Meanwhile, a very different system for responding to the drug use of Whites has emerged. This article uses the recent history of White opioids - the synthetic opiates such as OxyContin(®) that gained notoriety starting in the 1990s in connection with epidemic prescription medication abuse among White, suburban and rural Americans and Suboxone(®) that came on the market as an addiction treatment in the 2000s - to show how American drug policy is racialized, using the lesser known lens of decriminalized White drugs. Examining four 'technologies of whiteness' (neuroscience, pharmaceutical technology, legislative innovation and marketing), we trace a separate system for categorizing and disciplining drug use among Whites. This less examined 'White drug war' has carved out a less punitive, clinical realm for Whites where their drug use is decriminalized, treated primarily as a biomedical disease, and where their whiteness is preserved, leaving intact more punitive systems that govern the drug use of people of color. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 46 | 42% |
Canada | 2 | 2% |
Spain | 2 | 2% |
Australia | 1 | <1% |
India | 1 | <1% |
Comoros | 1 | <1% |
Italy | 1 | <1% |
Indonesia | 1 | <1% |
United Kingdom | 1 | <1% |
Other | 0 | 0% |
Unknown | 54 | 49% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 85 | 77% |
Scientists | 15 | 14% |
Science communicators (journalists, bloggers, editors) | 6 | 5% |
Practitioners (doctors, other healthcare professionals) | 4 | 4% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Unknown | 225 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Student > Ph. D. Student | 27 | 12% |
Student > Master | 26 | 12% |
Student > Bachelor | 22 | 10% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 20 | 9% |
Researcher | 19 | 8% |
Other | 43 | 19% |
Unknown | 68 | 30% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Social Sciences | 70 | 31% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 18 | 8% |
Psychology | 13 | 6% |
Nursing and Health Professions | 11 | 5% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 6 | 3% |
Other | 28 | 12% |
Unknown | 79 | 35% |