Risky Bodies, Drugs and Biopolitics

Abstract

While there has been a significant amount of scholarship done on health and risk in relation to public health and disease prevention, relatively little attention has been paid to therapeutic interventions which seek to manage risks as bodily, and biological, matters. This article elucidates the distinct qualities and logics of these two different approaches to risk management, in relation to Michel Foucault's conception of the two poles of biopower, that is, a biopolitics of the population and an anatomo-politics of the human body. Using a case study of contemporary addiction biomedicine, the article examines the development and deployment of treatments for addiction that seek to reduce the risks of relapse to drug use, and relates this case to other risk-reducing (but non-curative) medications, particularly cholesterol-reducing medications. The notion of a 'disease of risk' is developed in order to identify a range of medical conditions that bear a family resemblance, insofar as they are pharmaceutically managed with risk-reducing medications, and bound up within what is described as a contemporary 'risk anatomo-politics'.

Making up a Drug Epidemic: Constructing Drug Discourse during the Opioid Epidemic in Ontario

“…Despite the growing market for drug inhibitors and antagonists such as methadone, buprenorphine, naloxone, naltrexone and varenicline, these drugs only target specific drugs such as opioids or nicotine, and are not long-term solutions to behaviour modification. Perhaps the most unsettling charge against these forms of therapeutic intervention is the increased presence of state mandated control over deviant bodies who reject social norms of sobriety and economic activity (Bourgois, 2000;Vrecko, 2016), as a cure-all drug for drug use could be forcibly imposed on high risk populations in order to eliminate any chances of risky substance use. This individuation of a social problem is yet another problematic aspect of the disease model of addiction that is often mentioned in critical drug studies.…”

“…Here we see how opioid dependence is seen as a risky behaviour for parents and that their life choices can put their own children at a disadvantage, solidifying notions that drug use can taint family lineages and breed deviance generationally. Logics of anatomo-politics establish direct chemical control over biological mechanisms that are associated with future medical problems (Vrecko, 2016). These faulty mechanisms mark individuals as different, as somehow tainted, like the mark upon Cain, representing his guilt in the eyes of God.…”

Making up a Drug Epidemic: Constructing Drug Discourse during the Opioid Epidemic in Ontario

“…Despite the growing market for drug inhibitors and antagonists such as methadone, buprenorphine, naloxone, naltrexone and varenicline, these drugs only target specific drugs such as opioids or nicotine, and are not long-term solutions to behaviour modification. Perhaps the most unsettling charge against these forms of therapeutic intervention is the increased presence of state mandated control over deviant bodies who reject social norms of sobriety and economic activity (Bourgois, 2000;Vrecko, 2016), as a cure-all drug for drug use could be forcibly imposed on high risk populations in order to eliminate any chances of risky substance use. This individuation of a social problem is yet another problematic aspect of the disease model of addiction that is often mentioned in critical drug studies.…”

“…Here we see how opioid dependence is seen as a risky behaviour for parents and that their life choices can put their own children at a disadvantage, solidifying notions that drug use can taint family lineages and breed deviance generationally. Logics of anatomo-politics establish direct chemical control over biological mechanisms that are associated with future medical problems (Vrecko, 2016). These faulty mechanisms mark individuals as different, as somehow tainted, like the mark upon Cain, representing his guilt in the eyes of God.…”

Recovery in the US ‘Opioid Crisis’

“…In the biomedical model, relapse is understood as rooted in biological craving, with the addicted brain hypersensitive to drug-related stimuli (Vrecko 2016). Relapse is a chronic risk to be expected; an accepted, if unfortunate, part of a chronic disease process that is managed pharmaceutically.…”