BIS 275: Social Problems Substance Abuse and Dependency

Instructor: Jennifer Carroll Course Overview: This course is designed to introduce students to the numerous paradigms that shape our perception of social problems and, in turn, shape our understanding of the causes behind those problems and the most suitable tactics for solving them. Substance abuse represents a number of particularly difficult social problems that are equally difficult to conceptualize or define in any singular, robust way. Substance abuse can be perceived as a medical problem, as a mental health problem, as a public health problem, as a criminal problem, as a human rights problem, and so on. In this course, students will be introduced to multiple approaches to the subject of substance abuse and addiction and to some of the many solutions that each of these approaches propose. Course Goal: Students in this course will learn to analyze and question the two fundamental elements that define our interaction with the social world and our perceptions of social problems. First, students will explore the varied epistemologies behind different modes of social analysis. Whether it be founded upon the empiricist epistemology of biomedicine or the constructivist epistemology of critical medical anthropology, every attempt to make sense of the human world rests upon certain assumptions and beliefs about how that world works and how we are able to know the things that we claim to know. Second, students will analyze and critique the ontology of these varied approaches; they will learn to critically assess the limits of what is known, what can be known, and what kind(s) of knowledge can be produced within epistemological frameworks. Students will gain these skills through studying substance abuse and addiction, a social problem that has been defined by its tenacious refusal to fit cleanly into any particular scientific, medical, social, or psychological paradigm. Required Texts: 1) Glasser, I. 2012. Anthropology of Addictions and Recovery. Waveland Press. 2) Bourgois, P. and J. Schonberg 2009. Righteous Dopefiend. Berkeley: University of California Press. 3) Course Reader (local print shop- TBA) Course Assignments and Grading Grading: Students will be assigned a grade for this course according to the following formula: Reading Assignments and Responses: Participation: Two Midterms: Final Paper: Total 20 points 30 points 2 @ 10 points each 30 points 100 points

Reading Assignments and Responses (20 points): All assignments (including readings) are listed on the course schedule on the day they are due to be completed. Students are required to post a written response to a minimum of ten readings (which means readings from ten different class periods) over the course of the quarter on the class bulletin board. These responses should be approximately 100 words, excluding any quotations, and should directly address the readings for that day. Appropriate content for these responses include questions that have arisen from the readings, critiques of the authors methods or arguments, and further thoughts relating the readings to other course materials, to content or lessons from other classes, or relevant current events. Responses must be posted by 12pm PST on the day of class when those readings are due in order to be counted for credit. Students are encouraged to engage in online discussion and respond to each others postings. Expectations for scholarly conduct in the classroom extend to this on-line forum. Participation (30 points): Dialog and debate are central to all forms of academic inquiry. Satisfactory participation requires students to come to class prepared to discuss all of the readings assigned and to actively engage in discussion about those readings and the topics at hand. Active engagement in discussion does not simply mean talking. Asking questions, active listening, making room for and inviting others to participate, and making other meaningful, if small, contributions to class are all appropriate forms of classroom engagement. Being a part of a class of this size (especially a cultural anthropology class!) requires each of us to recognize that different individuals have different reaction times, different speeds of speech and lengths of conversational pauses. Some students may not be native speakers of English or may process information differently and at different speeds. Some people take a longer time to consider their words, and others sometimes speak without thinking! There is no concrete outline for how a student should participate in class, but everyone is required to make a consistent, concerted effort to actively engage. Midterms (2 @ 10 points each): There will be two short, written midterm evaluations. These tests will cover material from readings as well as from class lectures and discussion. Students will be given the midterm assignments several weeks prior to their due date. Both midterms will be comprehensive. Final Paper (30 points): This course requires students to write an original paper analyzing one chapter of the book Righteous Dopefiend, a detailed ethnography of a community engaged in illicit drug use that reflects interdisciplinary methods and approaches. These papers are students opportunity to explore the multifaceted nature of substance abuse (including social, scientific, political, and symbolic elements of this behavior) and to display their grasp of the key concepts addressed in this class by applying them in the analysis of their chosen text. Students will not need to conduct

any outside research for this assignment. Rather, they are encouraged to make liberal use of sources used in this class in their papers. Papers must be between 2000 and 3000 words in length, not including citations or footnotes. Papers above or below the word limit will not be accepted. All papers must be titled. Final drafts ready for submission should be in Times New Roman 12-point font, double-spaced, with one (1) inch margins on all sides. Pages should be numbered. Please include a heading with your name, course, and the date. There is no need for a title page. All references must be properly and adequately cited, including course materials. Student Expectations Anticipated Absences: If you are unable to come to class due to illness, personal or family emergency, or any other reason, you are responsible for informing the instructor prior to that class period. If you miss class for a reason that was unforeseen (traffic accident, etc.), you are responsible for informing the instructor as to the reason for your absence as soon as possible. It is expected that the instructor will be informed as to the nature of every absence, regardless of the cause. The excusing of absences is at the discretion of the instructor. If you are ill, you must bring a doctors note in order for that absence to be excused. Classroom Behavior and Preparation: Please be on time for class. If you cannot be on time for class, for whatever reason, please enter class without causing too much of a disturbance. This means enter the classroom quietly and sit in the first available seat. The same goes for those who need to leave class early. Please select a location close to the door of the classroom and leave quietly so as to keep the inevitable disruption to a minimum. By acting in such a manner, you are showing respect to your fellow students and the instructor. Students are welcome to bring laptops to class for note taking and accessing relevant on-line references and course materials. Email checking, chatting, game playing, and web surfing are highly inappropriate uses of class time and are disrespectful to the instructor and the other students in class. Students blatantly misusing technology in the classroom (including cell phones) will be asked to leave and will receive no credit for classroom participation on that day. Electronic Document Submission via Catalyst Dropbox: Whenever an assignment is submitted as an electronic document, it is the students responsibility to make sure that the file is correct and complete. If an electronic document is submitted and is unreadable or in anyway corrupted, the assignment will be considered incomplete and late penalties will apply until a proper, functional document is submitted. All written assignments should be submitted in .doc or .pdf format. All filenames should reflect the students name and the assignment.

Individual Student Needs and Disability Support: Every student deserves the opportunity learn in the best and most appropriate environment possible. If you have a question, concern, comment, request or other need please come and talk to me in person or send me a detailed e-mail as soon as possible. I can make adjustments or accommodations for individuals or the entire class, but only if I am made aware of them. Students with medically recognized and documented disabilities and who are in need of special accommodation have an obligation to notify the University of their needs. Students in need of accommodation should contact the Office of Disability Resources for Students at 206-543-8924 (Voice) or 206-543-8925 (TTY) You can also find more information online at http://www.washington.edu/students/drs/. If you need course adaptations or accommodations because of a disability, if you have emergency medical information, or if you need special arrangements in case the building must be evacuated, please make an appointment with me as soon as possible. Academic Honesty: I take academic honesty very seriously. When flagrant cheating or plagiarism occurs, it is an insult to me, to the students in this course, and to the guilty student. It is an insult to the time we spend here teaching and learning from each other. Academic instruction, particularly in this interdisciplinary program, is unique in its focus on intellectual fluency and collaborative effort rather than task-based competition and self-promotion. Your college education does not consist of a collection of hoops that you need to get through. This course requires you to engage with course materials, with other students, with the instructor, and with the greater academic community in a productive and innovative fashion. Academic dishonesty defeats the purposes of this class and of this institution, and it will not be tolerated. Especially in a discipline that requires you to be able to engage with the ideas of others and to cite multiple unique sources, plagiarism is an incredibly self-defeating activity. Plagiarism is, at the very least, grounds for a zero grade for that assignment. If a student is suspected of deliberate plagiarism on an assignment, that student will be reported to the Dean Representative on Academic Conduct in accordance with UWs Academic Honesty Policy. More information on UWs academic honestly policies can be found online: http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/help/academichonesty.php If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism or about your own work, I am eager to meet with you for a casual conversation to discuss these things.

Course Schedule Week 1: day 1 Week 1: day 2 Introduction to the Course Popular Understandings of Substance Abuse and Dependency: --Furnham A. and L Thomson. 2000. Lay Theories of Heroin Addiction. Social Science and Medicine 43(1): 29-40. First midterm question distributed. Medical Definitions of Substance Abuse and Addiction: --I. Glasser. 2012. An Introduction to the Anthropology of Addictions and Recovery in Anthropology of Addictions and Recovery. Waveland Press. -- Saunders, J. 2006. Substance Dependence and Non-Dependence in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and the International Classification of Diseases (ICD): Can an Identical Conceptualization be Achieved? Addiction 101. Suppl. 1: 48-58. --Levine, H. 1978 The Discovery of Addiction: Changing Conceptions of Habitual Drunkenness in America. Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 39(2): 143-147. --Dolan. B. 2007. The Art of Evidence and the Morality of Medical Decisions. Paper presented to Social Medicine Grand Rounds, UCSF, May 2, 2007. Public Health Approaches to Illicit Drug Use Behaviors: --Celentano, D. D., Vlahov, D., Cohn, S., Anthony, J. C., Solomon, L., & Nelson, K. E. 1991. Risk factors for shooting gallery use and cessation among intravenous drug users. American Journal of Public Health, 81, 10, 1291-5. --Swendsen, J., Conway, K. P., Degenhardt, L., Dierker, L., Glantz, M., Jin, R., Merikangas, K. R., Kessler, R. C. 2009. Socio-demographic risk factors for alcohol and drug dependence: the 10-year follow-up of the national comorbidity survey. Addiction (abingdon, England), 104, 8, 1346-55. --Glick-Schiller, N. 1992. Whats Wrong with This Picture? The Hegemonic Construction of Culture in AIDS Research in the United States. Medical Anthropology 6(3): 237-254. --Brown, T. 2000, AIDS, Risk, and Social Governance Social Science and Medicine 50:1273-1284. Mental Health Approaches -- Robinson, T, and K. Berridge. 2003. Addiction. Annual Review of Psychology 54(1): 25-29

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--Carroll, J. 2011. Addiction, Gender, and the Limits of Public Health Approaches to IV Drug-Use in Ukraine. Electronic Document. First midterm assignment due. Social Construction of Drug Use Behaviors: --Bourgois, P, B. Prince, and A. Moss. 2004. The Everyday Violence of Hepatitis C in Among Young Women who Inject Drugs in San Francisco. Human Organization 63(3):253-264. --Selections from Spradley, J. 1968. You Owe Yourself a Drunk Second midterm assignment distributed Integrated Approaches: --Singer, M. 2001. Toward a Bio-Cultural and Political Economic Integration of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Studies. Social Science and Medicine 53(2): 199-213 Medical Treatment for Drug Addiction: --Marsch, L. 1998. The Efficacy of Methadone Maintenance Interventions in Reducing Illicit Opiate Use, HIV Risk Behavior and Criminality: a Meta Analysis. Addiction 93(4):515-532. --Dolan, K., S. Salimi. B. Nassirimanesh, S, Mohsenifar, A. Mokri. 2011. The Establishment of a Methadone Treatment Clinic for Women in Tehran, Iran. Journal of Public Health Policy 32(2): 219-30. -- Tsogia, D. Copello, A. Orford, J. 2001 Entering Treatment for Substance misuse: a review of the literature. Journal of Mental Health 10(5): 451-499. --Bourgois, P. 2000. Disciplining Addictions. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 24: 165195, 2000. -- Raikhel, E. (2010) Post-soviet placebos: Epistemology and authority in Russian treatments for alcoholism. Culture Medicine and Psychiatry, 34, 132168. Harm Reduction: --Vlahov, D. and B. Junge. 1998. The Role of Needle Exchange Programs in HIV Prevention. Public Health Reports 113(Suppl 1): 7580. --van den Brink, Wim, Vincent M. Hendriks, Peter Blanken, Maarten W. Koeter, Barbara J. van Sweiten, and Jan M. van Ree. 2003. Medical Prescription of Heroin to Treatment Resistant Heroin Addicts: Two Randomized Control Trials. British Medical Journal 327: 310-315. --Singer, M., R. Irizarry, and J. J. Schensul. 1991 Needle Access as ad

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AIDS Prevention Strategy for IV Drug Users: A Research Perspective. Human Organization 50:285-306. Week 9: day 1 --Campbell, N. D. and S. J. Shaw (2008) INCITEMENTS TO DISCOURSE: Illicit Drugs, Harm Reduction, and the Production of Ethnographic Subjects Cultural Anthropology 23(4): 688-717. --Fischer, B., S. Turnbull, B. Poland, E. Haydon. (2004) Drug use, risk and urban order: examining supervised injection sites (SISs) as governmentality International Journal of Drug Policy 15: 357365. Self-Help Approaches: --I. Glasser. 2012. Recovery in Cross-Cultural Perspective in Anthropology of Addictions and Recovery. Waveland Press. -- Zigon, J. 2010. A Disease of Frozen Feelings: Ethically Working on Emotional Worlds in a Russian Orthodox Church Drug Rehabilitation Program. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 24(3):326-343. Second midterm assignment due. Discussion of Righteous Dopefiend Discussion of Righteous Dopefiend.

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