The brain model of addiction located the source of addiction in the brain rather than in say the immorality or depravity of drug users. This move instead ended up erasing structural factors by focusing on a disembodied and socially decontextualized human brain, Jules writes. The scientists involved wanted to counteract a drug war mentality by erasing the social context of drug use yet they paradoxically set the stage for renewed racial stratification of opioids is this something that we're seeing here in the persistence of this two tiered treatment system?
Featuring Helena Hansen, Jules Netherland, and David Herzberg on how American capitalism and its illusions of whiteness both created the opioid crisis and shaped the response to it. We are discussing their book Whiteout: How Racial Capitalism Changed the Color of Opioids in America.
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