ANT204H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Biopolitics, Methadone, Moral Economy
Document Summary
Criminal activity on the part of drug addicts. Policing of how many needles drug addicts can carry: caltran comes and takes down their shelters, confiscates their clothing, blankets, and possessions. This increases/exacerbates drug use: medical model contradicts the police model. Individuals are given the medication needed by the hospital and released back onto the street because hotel vouchers are finished and the police take the drugs and kick them out of their camps. Symbolic violence: drug users are blamed for abscesses and diseases but they don"t have the opportunity to change their ways, its in the language & gestures. In the hospital they are called frequent flyers, in the hospital one of the workers is holding their nose when treating hank: forms of racism and treatment of homeless. Abuse is a sickness of trying to escape dope-sickness that drives this system. Victims often take-up and internalize forms of abuse they have experienced.
