Going Nowhere: Ambivalence about Drug Treatment during an Overdose Public Health Emergency in Vancouver

Original research
par
Fast, Danya

Date de publication

2021

Géographie

Canada

Langue de la ressource

English

Texte disponible en version intégrale

Oui

Open Access / OK to Reproduce

Oui

Évalué par des pairs

Yes

L’objectif

The declaration of an overdose public health emergency in Vancouver has generated an “affective churn” of intervention across youth‐focused drug treatment settings, including the expanded provision of opioid agonist therapy. In this article, I track moments when young people became swept up in the momentum of this churn and the future possibilities that treatment seemed to promise

Constatations/points à retenir

I also track moments when treatment and what happened next engendered a sense of stagnation, arguing that the churn of intervention ensnared many youth in rhythms of starts and stops that generated significant ambivalence toward treatment. The colonial past and present deepened this ambivalence among some Indigenous young people and informed moments of refusal. Youth's lives unfolded through but also around treatment programs, in zones of the city where drug use could generate a sense of momentum that was hooked not on futures, but on the sensorial possibilities of the now.

Mots clés

Wrap-around services
About PWUD
Social services
Housing
Illegal drugs
Youth
Indigenous
Substitution/OAT