Race as a Ghost Variable in (White) Opioid Research

Bibliographic Data

ID11261544
AuthorsH Hansen (0000-0003-0569-1392, New York University, corresponding author), Caroline Mary Parker (0000-0002-0817-2494, University of Manchester), Caroline Parker (University of Manchester), Jules Netherland (Office of Academic Engagement, Drug Policy Alliance, New York, NY, USA)
Year2020
Volume45
Issue5
Pages848-876
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0162243920912812
OpenAlexW3014547839
LanguageEN
Citations received19
References cited57

This paper traces the unspoken, implicit white racial logic of the brain disease model of addiction, which is based on seemingly universal, disembodied brains devoid of social or environmental influences. In the United States, this implicit white logic led to “context-free” neuroscience that made the social hierarchies of addiction and its consequences invisible to, and thus exacerbated by, national policies on opioids. The brain disease model of addiction was selectively deployed among the white middle-class population that had long accessed narcotics and pharmaceutical treatments for narcotics disorders from biomedical clinics, as opposed to from illegal sources subject to law enforcement. In turn, new treatments for opioid addiction were racially marketed to the same white clientele to which newly patented opioid analgesics were marketed, tapping into a circumscribed but highly lucrative consumer base that has long benefited from a legally protected, racially segregated safe space for white narcotics consumption. The connecting thread for the contemporary white opioid “crisis,” therefore, is white race as a ghost variable in addiction neuroscience and in its pharmaceutical and biotechnological translation

Addiction · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Environmental health · Opioid · Population · Psychiatry · Race (biology · Sociology · White (mutation · Gender Studies · History · Medicine · Opioid Use Disorder Treatment · Prenatal Substance Exposure Effects · Psychology · Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes