Narcan as biomedical panic: The war on overdose and the harms of harm reduction

As the opioid overdose crisis in the US persists, governments have coordinated with drug companies to propagate the overdose reversal drug naloxone (Narcan) as a ‘kinder/gentler’ state response, deriving from a supposedly progressive harm reduction ethos. Drawing on Derrida’s deconstruction of pharm...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Kavanaugh, Philip R. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2022
In: Theoretical criminology
Year: 2022, Volume: 26, Issue: 1, Pages: 132-152
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Keywords:
Biopolitics
Drug War
Harm Reduction
Naloxone
Narcan
Opioid crisis
Description
Summary:As the opioid overdose crisis in the US persists, governments have coordinated with drug companies to propagate the overdose reversal drug naloxone (Narcan) as a ‘kinder/gentler’ state response, deriving from a supposedly progressive harm reduction ethos. Drawing on Derrida’s deconstruction of pharmakon, I show how Narcan is rendered paradoxical and terminal, diverting attention from the structural antecedents of opioid addiction and resources for drug treatment while reproducing corporeal suffering in those revived. I further highlight how Narcan is positioned in a wider array of regressive governing practices that legitimate the state’s punitive drug war and demonization of drug users. Narcan thus provides a useful opening between the state and contemporary biomedicine to theorize how harm reduction and public health unfurl in insidious and corrosive ways.
ISSN:1461-7439
DOI:10.1177/1362480620964779