Critiques of harm reduction, morality and the promise of human rights

Keane, Helen

doi:10.1016/s0955-3959(02)00151-2

Cited by 181 publications

(146 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…115 This can reinforce a model of the 'normal' sovereign individual that has served to pathologise and marginalise drug users historically. While human rights can be effective tools for arguments about public health in some contexts, their prioritisation of norms of sovereign individuality is worrisome for drug politics.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 92%

The future of drugs: recreational drug use and sexual health among gay and other men who have sex with men

et al. 2017

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Abstract. There are complex historical connections between sexual minoritisation and desires to chemically alter bodily experience. For gay men, drug and alcohol use can be a creative or experimental response to social marginalisation -and not necessarily a problematic one in every instance. Numerous studies have found that infection with HIV and other sexually transmissible infections (STIs) is more likely among gay and men who have sex with men (MSM) who use recreational drugs than those who do not, but the causal nature of these relations is uncertain. Sexualised drug use is associated with a range of other problems, including dependence, mental health issues, accident and overdose. A growing body of work in the Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) field demonstrates the action of drugs and their purported effects to be a product of their relations with various other actors, contexts and practices. Given these contingencies, it is impossible to predict the future of drugs or their effect on the sexual health of gay and MSM with any degree of certainty. This article outlines some of the conditions most likely to mediate such futures in the medium term. Public funding for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer drug issues should not remain restricted to questions of HIV prevention and sexual health. It should be expanded to equip sexual health and AOD service providers with the cultural and sexual literacy to mitigate stigma and allow them to respond constructively to drug problems among sexual and gender minorities as a matter of priority.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 92%

The future of drugs: recreational drug use and sexual health among gay and other men who have sex with men

et al. 2017

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“…This adds weight to similar calls for 'convenience' in harm reduction (Fraser, 2013). Therefore, to return to Keane's (2003) However, thinking about how bodies become through events perhaps turns harm reduction research and practice as a 'matter of concern', or matter of 'what occurs', made up of a negotiated apparatus beyond the human, into what Puig de la Bellacasa (2011) calls a 'matter of care', or what I have suggested can be seen as an added concern for 'what becomes'. 'We must take care of things in order to remain responsible for their becomings' (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2011, p. 90), and therefore we must be accountable for what gets made in research and practice alike, and the bodily boundaries we inevitably bring into being.…”

Section: Harm Reduction Beyond the Human: What Does This Look Like Inmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Through this analysis, it appears that drugs do not have innate qualities but can be part of good and bad encounters (Keane, 2003) as bodily boundaries shift capacities to affect and be affected. That is, 'good' when linked up with bodies to become 'healthier' or somehow better than themselves (increasing capacities to act), and 'bad' when linked to bodies with stratifying tendencies, which tie bodies down and constrain them (decreasing capacities to act).…”

Section: Couldn't Walk At Allmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The injecting ‘event’: harm reduction beyond the human

Dennis

2017

Critical Public Health

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Since the 1980s, the primary public health response to injecting drug use in the UK has been one of harm reduction. That is, reducing the harms associated with drug use without necessarily reducing consumption itself. Rooted in a post-Enlightenment idea of rationalism, interventions are premised on the rational individual who, given the right means, will choose to avoid harm. This lies in stark contrast to dominant addiction models that pervade popular images of the 'out of control' drug user, or worse, 'junkie'. Whilst harm reduction has undoubtedly had vast successes, including challenging the otherwise pathologising and often stigmatising model of addiction, I argue that it has not gone far enough in addressing aspects of drug use that go beyond 'rational' and 'human' control. Drawing on my doctoral research with people who inject drugs, conducted in London, UK, this paper highlights the role of the injecting 'event', which far from being directed or controlled by a pre-defined individual or 'body' was composed by a fragile assemblage of bodies, human and nonhuman. Furthermore, in line with the 'event's' heterogeneous and precarious make-up, multiple ways of 'becoming' through these events were possible. I look here at these 'becomings' as both stabilising and destabilising ways of being in the world, and argue that we need to pay closer attention to these events and what people are actually in the process of becoming in order to enact more accountable and 'response-able' harm reduction.

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“…Se présentant comme amorale (Keane, 2003) et se réclamant du pragmatisme, la philosophie de RDM soutient que l'usage de drogues est un phénomène « naturel » avec lequel il s'agit de composer. Cette posture, doit être mise en relation avec l'urgence induite par l'épidémie susmentionnée.…”

Section: L'assujettissement Et La Réduction Des Méfaitsunclassified

Espace disciplinaire et normativité sociale contemporaine

Glendenning

2017

nps

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Tous droits réservés © Université du Québec à Montréal, 2016Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d'auteur. L'utilisation des services d'Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d'utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne.https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit.Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de

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Critiques of harm reduction, morality and the promise of human rights

Cited by 181 publications

References 8 publications

The future of drugs: recreational drug use and sexual health among gay and other men who have sex with men

The future of drugs: recreational drug use and sexual health among gay and other men who have sex with men

The injecting ‘event’: harm reduction beyond the human

Espace disciplinaire et normativité sociale contemporaine

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