A Brief History of Prohibition and Treatment Solutions for Substance Abusers

Duncan, David F.; Nicholson, Tom; White, John B.; Ellis-Griffith, Gregory

doi:10.6000/1929-4409.2014.03.17

“…His arguments are similar to previously presented concerns about methadone (it is addictive and has severe side-effects, leading to users' deaths in some cases) (Corkery, Schifano, Ghodse, & Oyefeso, 2004) (Vuong et al, 2016). The effectiveness of methadone maintenance in reducing illicit opioid use, morbidity and death from overdose, and decreasing people who use drugs' involvement in crime as well as HIV risk behaviours, is evident in many countries (Ducan et al, 2014;Kermode et al, 2011;Wodak, 2011), including Vietnam (Hoang et al, 2015;Reid & Higgs, 2011;Tran, Ohinmaa, Duong, Do, Nguyen, Nguyen, et al, 2012;VAAC, 2011). Yet acknowledging its potential risks and drawbacks is also essential for its proper implementation.…”

Section: Substitution Treatmentsupporting

confidence: 65%

A critical exploration of professional perceptions of harm reduction policy and practice in Vietnam

Truong¹

0

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<p>Throughout the 1990s, Vietnam experienced a dramatic rise in the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs. In response, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health implemented several legal and policy interventions in the name of harm reduction. However, perceptions about drug use, people who use drugs, addiction and the nature of official interventions are contested. For many Vietnamese officials, abstinence remains the dominant philosophy. Drug use is considered a ‘social evil’ in Vietnam and people who use drugs face draconian controls and incarceration in the name of treatment and crime prevention. Against this background, this thesis explores how key stakeholders perceive harm reduction philosophy and how they apply it in policy and practice. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, it presents findings from a survey with 250 respondents and 26 semi-structured interviews, all with professionals involved in responding to drug use in Vietnam. The thesis illustrates that these professionals prefer abstinence approaches, and often see addiction as the result of moral failings and brain diseases. While some interventions in the name of harm reduction are accepted, they are firmly rooted within a narrow public health perspective. Professional misperceptions about the key principles and practices of ‘authentic’ harm reduction are widespread. Many professionals believe, for example, that harms can only be limited through reductions in the demand and supply of drugs, or that detaining people who use drugs in compulsory treatment centres is a form of harm reduction. These rationales have resulted in continuing police crackdowns, and the use of ‘pseudo’ harm reduction strategies to control and punish people who use drugs. Meanwhile, there are limited official attempts to address problems experienced by people who use drugs, like social isolation, stigma, discrimination, human rights violations, or problems of community reintegration. In conclusion, while a harm reduction rhetoric is regularly employed in Vietnam, ‘pseudo’ harm reduction strategies are carried out.</p>

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“…Unsurprisingly, ostensibly colorblind agendas work to naturalize White supremacy and the privileges that flow from it, because it fails to critique a status quo that has always existed to benefit White people and affirm their identities. Simultaneously, policymakers and others who Duncan, Nicholson, White, and Ellis-Griffith (2014) refer to as "moral entrepreneurs," rely on racially coded references to location and geography to support punitive drug policies that target ethnoracial minority groups. In response to this practice, I will demonstrate how prison-based substance abuse rehabilitation programing perpetuates a White supremacist creed.…”

Section: A Note On White Privilege and White Supremacymentioning

confidence: 99%

An historical review of racial bias in prison-based substance abuse treatment design

Kerrison

¹

2017

Journal of Offender Rehabilitation

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This study leverages critical race and legal epidemiological frameworks to illustrate the race-based historical evolution of U.S. rehabilitation paradigms directed at imprisoned heroin and opioid users. What began as a racist early-20th-century federal antinarcotic trafficking effort has since assumed a state-based treatment agenda whose programmatic operations are largely based in correctional settings disproportionately reserved for poor substance abusers of color. Even in contemporary carceral facilities, where incarcerated populations are teeming with White addicts, in the aggregate, White drug abusers have been protected from the depraved, incorrigible, and inherently pathological drug-using caricature assigned to their non-White counterparts. This historical examination demonstrates how links between broader drug policy and prison-based drug treatment support a legally codified White supremacist narrative that erodes health and wellbeing for program participants of color, and the communities to which they inevitably return.

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“…However, the effectiveness of methadone maintenance in reducing illicit opioid use, morbidity and death from overdose, and decreasing people who use drugs' involvement in crime as well as HIV risk behaviours, is evident in many countries (Ducan, Nicholson, White, & Ellis-Griffith, 2014;Kermode et al, 2011;Wodak, 2011), Vietnam included (Hoang et al, 2015;Reid & Higgs, 2011;Tran, Ohinmaa, Duong, Do, Nguyen, Nguyen, et al, 2012;VAAC, 2011). Therefore, 80 countries and territories, including Vietnam, implemented OST in 2016 (International Harm Reduction Association, 2016).…”

Section: Critiques and Challenges Of Harm Reductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A critical exploration of professional perceptions of harm reduction policy and practice in Vietnam

Truong¹

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

<p>Throughout the 1990s, Vietnam experienced a dramatic rise in the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs. In response, Vietnam’s Ministry of Health implemented several legal and policy interventions in the name of harm reduction. However, perceptions about drug use, people who use drugs, addiction and the nature of official interventions are contested. For many Vietnamese officials, abstinence remains the dominant philosophy. Drug use is considered a ‘social evil’ in Vietnam and people who use drugs face draconian controls and incarceration in the name of treatment and crime prevention. Against this background, this thesis explores how key stakeholders perceive harm reduction philosophy and how they apply it in policy and practice. Based on qualitative and quantitative methods, it presents findings from a survey with 250 respondents and 26 semi-structured interviews, all with professionals involved in responding to drug use in Vietnam. The thesis illustrates that these professionals prefer abstinence approaches, and often see addiction as the result of moral failings and brain diseases. While some interventions in the name of harm reduction are accepted, they are firmly rooted within a narrow public health perspective. Professional misperceptions about the key principles and practices of ‘authentic’ harm reduction are widespread. Many professionals believe, for example, that harms can only be limited through reductions in the demand and supply of drugs, or that detaining people who use drugs in compulsory treatment centres is a form of harm reduction. These rationales have resulted in continuing police crackdowns, and the use of ‘pseudo’ harm reduction strategies to control and punish people who use drugs. Meanwhile, there are limited official attempts to address problems experienced by people who use drugs, like social isolation, stigma, discrimination, human rights violations, or problems of community reintegration. In conclusion, while a harm reduction rhetoric is regularly employed in Vietnam, ‘pseudo’ harm reduction strategies are carried out.</p>

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A Brief History of Prohibition and Treatment Solutions for Substance Abusers

Cited by 7 publications

References 73 publications

A critical exploration of professional perceptions of harm reduction policy and practice in Vietnam

A critical exploration of professional perceptions of harm reduction policy and practice in Vietnam

An historical review of racial bias in prison-based substance abuse treatment design

A critical exploration of professional perceptions of harm reduction policy and practice in Vietnam

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