Gender and Critical Drug Studies: An invitation and an exhortation

Gendered violence and overdose prevention sites: a rapid ethnographic study during an overdose epidemic in Vancouver, Canada

“…Although the overdose epidemic has been largely framed as a men's health issue , and ‘white problem’ , such narrow frameworks obscure the specific ways the overdose epidemic overlaps with gendered violence within the intersectional risk environment, and fentanyl‐adulterated opioids are intensifying gendered and racialized violence . Further attention to emerging syndemics of overdose and violence among WWUD is needed urgently and must be addressed by attending to the social–structural drivers of violence, including the intersections of socio‐economic and gender inequalities, colonialism and systemic racism and drug prohibition . Meanwhile, ongoing attention to the development of women‐led and culturally unresponsive harm reduction interventions that are aligned with women's needs is paramount.…”

“…Among Indigenous women, these dynamics are compounded by the lack of Indigenous, women‐led harm reduction interventions, despite evidence of their effectiveness . Understanding how intersections of social location influence women's engagement with overdose‐focused interventions will be critical to addressing gendered and racialized barriers , as well as identifying dynamics within the intersectional risk environment that constrain access to services. Closer attention to such dynamics will be necessary to inform policies and interventions to mitigate the disproportionate burdens faced by WWUD , including explicit attention to social–structural drivers producing inequities in overdose‐related outcomes among Indigenous women (e.g.…”

Women‐only treatment? Epistemologies of ignorance, intersectionality and the need for a feminist embodiment approach

“…This effect is especially pronounced for women. Overall, this research is part of a growing literature on service integration: evidence that substance abuse treatment is more effective when health, mental health, parenting, vocational, housing and legal issues are addressed along with substance abuse issues [8,9].…”

“…Recently, Campbell & Herzog [9] argued that bodies become 'interpretable' culturally and politically and in response bodies are changed-'bodies are… shaped to carry the effects of a gender order' ( [9], p. 254). They demonstrate that gender and other categories such as race, ethnicity, age, class, etc.…”

Developing a Transformative Drug Policy Research Agenda in the United States

“…At the top of that list was the desire for interdisciplinary forums, such as the one created by the project itself. Participants agreed that many significant barriers to actionable and effective drug policy research are structural, including the mandate to work within a discipline (Campbell & Herzberg, 2017;Dunbar et al, 2010;Kushner, 2006Kushner, , 2010. Further, the structure of academic and for-profit funding, research, and publication distances researchers from the immediacy and impact of policy on people who use drugs and their needs (Stein & Daniels, 2017).…”