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Fighting Stigmatization Of Drug Users In Denver
By Phillip Smith
In many ways, ours is harsh, moralistic, and punitive society. One need only look at our world-leading incarceration rate to see the evidence. We like to punish wrongdoers, and our conception of wrongdoers often includes those who are doing no direct wrong to others, but who are doing things of which we don’t approve.
We label those people of whom we don’t approve. When it comes to drugs and drug use, the labels are all too familiar: Heroin users are “fucking junkies;” alcohol abusers are “worthless drunks;” cocaine smokers are “crack heads;” stimulant users are “tweakers;” people with prescription drug habits are “pill poppers.” The disdain and the labeling even extends to the use of drugs on the cusp of mainstream acceptance. Marijuana users are “stoners” or “pot heads” or “couch potatoes.”
Such labeling — or stigmatizing — defines those people as different, not like us, capital-O Other. It dehumanizes the targeted population. And that makes it more socially and politically feasible to define them as threats to the rest of us and take harsh actions against them. It’s a pattern that we’ve seen repeatedly in the drug panics that sweep the nation on a regular basis. Drug users are likened to disease vectors or dangerous vermin that must be repressed, eradicated, wiped out to protect the rest of us.
(It is interesting in this regard to ponder the response to the most recent wave of opiate addiction, where, for the first time, users are being seen as “our sons and daughters,” not debauched decadents or scary people of color who live in inner cities. Yes, the impulse to punish still exists, but it is now attenuated and superseded by calls for access to treatment.)
Never mind that such attitudes can be counterproductive. Criminalizing and punishing injection drug use has not, for example, slowed the spread of blood-borne infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C. To the contrary, it has only contributed to the spread of those diseases. Likewise, criminalizing drug possession does not prevent drug overdoses, but it may well prevent an overdose victim’s friends or acquaintances from seeking life-saving medical attention for him.
A recent survey from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence reinforces the view that we tend to stigmatize drug users as morally decrepit. That survey found that Americans are significantly more likely to have negative attitudes about drug addiction and addicts than about mental illness.
Only one out of five said they would be willing to work closely on the job with a person addicted to drugs (as compared to 62% for mental illness), and nearly two-thirds said employers should be able to deny a job to someone with an addiction issue (as compared to 25% for mental illness). And 43% said drug addicts should be denied health insurance benefits available to the public at large.
“While drug addiction and mental illness are both chronic, treatable health conditions, the American public is more likely to think of addiction as a moral failing than a medical condition,” said study leader Colleen L. Barry, Ph.D. of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “In recent years, it has become more socially acceptable to talk publicly about one’s struggles with mental illness. But with addiction, the feeling is that the addict is a bad or weak person, especially because much drug use is illegal.”
“The more shame associated with drug addiction, the less likely we as a community will be in a position to change attitudes and get people the help they need,” study coauthor Beth McGinty, Ph.D. said in a news release. “If you can educate the public that these are treatable conditions, we will see higher levels of support for policy changes that benefit people with mental illness and drug addiction.”
Continued here http://www.theweedblog.com/fighting-stigmatization-of-drug-users-in-denver/
By Phillip Smith
In many ways, ours is harsh, moralistic, and punitive society. One need only look at our world-leading incarceration rate to see the evidence. We like to punish wrongdoers, and our conception of wrongdoers often includes those who are doing no direct wrong to others, but who are doing things of which we don’t approve.
We label those people of whom we don’t approve. When it comes to drugs and drug use, the labels are all too familiar: Heroin users are “fucking junkies;” alcohol abusers are “worthless drunks;” cocaine smokers are “crack heads;” stimulant users are “tweakers;” people with prescription drug habits are “pill poppers.” The disdain and the labeling even extends to the use of drugs on the cusp of mainstream acceptance. Marijuana users are “stoners” or “pot heads” or “couch potatoes.”
Such labeling — or stigmatizing — defines those people as different, not like us, capital-O Other. It dehumanizes the targeted population. And that makes it more socially and politically feasible to define them as threats to the rest of us and take harsh actions against them. It’s a pattern that we’ve seen repeatedly in the drug panics that sweep the nation on a regular basis. Drug users are likened to disease vectors or dangerous vermin that must be repressed, eradicated, wiped out to protect the rest of us.
(It is interesting in this regard to ponder the response to the most recent wave of opiate addiction, where, for the first time, users are being seen as “our sons and daughters,” not debauched decadents or scary people of color who live in inner cities. Yes, the impulse to punish still exists, but it is now attenuated and superseded by calls for access to treatment.)
Never mind that such attitudes can be counterproductive. Criminalizing and punishing injection drug use has not, for example, slowed the spread of blood-borne infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C. To the contrary, it has only contributed to the spread of those diseases. Likewise, criminalizing drug possession does not prevent drug overdoses, but it may well prevent an overdose victim’s friends or acquaintances from seeking life-saving medical attention for him.
A recent survey from the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence reinforces the view that we tend to stigmatize drug users as morally decrepit. That survey found that Americans are significantly more likely to have negative attitudes about drug addiction and addicts than about mental illness.
Only one out of five said they would be willing to work closely on the job with a person addicted to drugs (as compared to 62% for mental illness), and nearly two-thirds said employers should be able to deny a job to someone with an addiction issue (as compared to 25% for mental illness). And 43% said drug addicts should be denied health insurance benefits available to the public at large.
“While drug addiction and mental illness are both chronic, treatable health conditions, the American public is more likely to think of addiction as a moral failing than a medical condition,” said study leader Colleen L. Barry, Ph.D. of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “In recent years, it has become more socially acceptable to talk publicly about one’s struggles with mental illness. But with addiction, the feeling is that the addict is a bad or weak person, especially because much drug use is illegal.”
“The more shame associated with drug addiction, the less likely we as a community will be in a position to change attitudes and get people the help they need,” study coauthor Beth McGinty, Ph.D. said in a news release. “If you can educate the public that these are treatable conditions, we will see higher levels of support for policy changes that benefit people with mental illness and drug addiction.”
Continued here http://www.theweedblog.com/fighting-stigmatization-of-drug-users-in-denver/
