The Remains of Care in the Context of Pharmaceuticalization. Opiate Substitution Treatment in the Post-Welfare State

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 05. Pharmaceuticals

Abstract

The paper explores what the provision of care really means in opioid substitution treatment (OST) within the current trends of pharmaseuticalization and austerity politics. Previous critics of pharmaceutical governance have argued that more and more of the welfare state’s resources are used to develop and provide pharmacotherapies, which not only means less resources for other forms of treatment but also changes the way in which we understand the care of people in need of help. In this paper we examine how pharmaseuticalization affects the everyday realization of care, in particular the relationship between workers and patients. What remains of a more holistic notion of care if treatment consists simply of medication? Secondly, what kind of a ”cure” does pharmaseuticalization offer problems such as drug use, which are not only brain-based but also social in nature? The empirical data used in the paper is gathered from an OST clinic in Finland that dispenses methadone to people suffering from severe opiate dependency. The ethnographic method used in the paper provides a detailed, in-depth analysis of the different actors and relationships (both human and non-human) which characterize the pharmaceutical treatment of drug dependency on the everyday level of action. We argue that a strong emphasis on pharmaceutical treatment may result in the increasing abandonment of people suffering from drug problems, especially in the neoliberalist context which focuses on cutting the costs of public services.

Authors

• Anna Leppo, University of Helsinki

• Riikka Perälä, University of Helsinki