2011 Annual Meeting: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE “DOPE DOUBLE AGENT:” FORTY YEARS ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE WAR ON DRUGS WITHMIKE AGAR AND FRIENDS
3-0855 CONVERSATIONS WITH THE “DOPE DOUBLE AGENT:” FORTY YEARS ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE WAR
ON DRUGS WITH MIKE AGAR AND FRIENDS
Thursday, November 17, 2011: 13:45-17:30
Montreal Convention Center 518C (Palais des congrès de Montréal)
During two years of service in the U.S. Public Health Service Corps, Mike Agar completed his dissertation fieldwork in at Lexington drug treatment facility—commonly referred to as KY or Narco—where every narcotics addict east of the Mississippi went for treatment. The result was Ripping and Running (1973) and the beginning of 40 years of engagement with one of the most intellectually challenging and socially devastating public concerns in recent history. Over those 40 years, Mike has conducted ethnographic work at KY and the streets of New York. He has studied methadone and buprenorphine and their potential diversion to street use. He has also examined current and historical drug epidemics, asking the anthropological and epidemiological question why these people in this place at this time? Most recently, he has reflected on all of these years and
their implications for drug policy in his book, Dope Double Agent (2006). In the anthropological tradition of individual life histories and reflexive personal biography, this session brings together Mike and several of his colleagues, who have a varying number of years to the drug field, to reflect on what it has meant to be engaged in this field and the ups and downs of the policy debate. The individual papers in the session will use life history, personal biography, and their own research as
anthropologists in the drug field to reflexively examine drug policy and the impact of the discipline. The point of the papers is to get a sense of the long-term dynamics of the interaction between anthropology and an interdisciplinary and highly charged political domain like the drug field. As we set the conversation in motion, we hope to come up with some general lessons about how drug policy works, doesn't, and might in the short term and over the long haul.
Organizers:
Heather S Reisinger (CADRE - Iowa City VA Healthcare System) and Lee Hoffer (Case Western Reserve University)
Chairs:
Lee Hoffer (Case Western University) and Heather S Reisinger (CADRE - Iowa City VA Healthcare System)
Discussants:
Merrill C Singer (UConn), Richard Stephens (University of Akron) and Michael H Agar (Ethknoworks)
Sponsors:
Wiley-Blackwell
Oxford University Press
Microsoft Research
Introduction
More Like a MASH Unit Than the Front Line
Michael H Agar, Ethknoworks
Heroin Addicts As Computational Agents: Reflections On the Costs and Benefits of Merging Agent-Based Modeling and Ethnography
Lee Hoffer, Case Western Reserve University
Rippin’ and Runnin' with the Dope Double Agent: A Decade of Drug Research and Ethnography with Mike
James Peterson, George Washington University
Break
Vicodin Wars: Providers and Patients Struggle with Pain and Addiction
Owen Murdoch, Lifelong Medical Care
An Unexpected Turn: Trend Theory As a Theoretical and Methodological Guide to Studying Policy Implementation
Heather S Reisinger, CADRE - Iowa City VA Healthcare System
“They’re Legal…Right?”: Non-Medical Pharmaceutical Use by Young Adults In the United States
Gilbert Quintero, University of Montana
Break
"Stumbling” Into the Drug and Alcohol Research Arenas or Reconstructing the Past to Suit the Present
Geoffrey P Hunt, Institute for Scientific Analysis
When Did a Drunk Become An Alcoholic and a Consumer of Opioids Become a Junkie?
John B Page, Miami University
When Opioids Collide: Reflections On 20 Years of Drug Research In Dayton, Ohio
Robert Carlson, Wright University
Discussant
Merrill C Singer, UConn
Discussant
Richard Stephens, University of Akron
Discussant
Michael H Agar, Ethknoworks
3-0855 CONVERSATIONS WITH THE “DOPE DOUBLE AGENT:” FORTY YEARS ON THE FRONT LINES OF THE WAR
ON DRUGS WITH MIKE AGAR AND FRIENDS
Thursday, November 17, 2011: 13:45-17:30
Montreal Convention Center 518C (Palais des congrès de Montréal)
During two years of service in the U.S. Public Health Service Corps, Mike Agar completed his dissertation fieldwork in at Lexington drug treatment facility—commonly referred to as KY or Narco—where every narcotics addict east of the Mississippi went for treatment. The result was Ripping and Running (1973) and the beginning of 40 years of engagement with one of the most intellectually challenging and socially devastating public concerns in recent history. Over those 40 years, Mike has conducted ethnographic work at KY and the streets of New York. He has studied methadone and buprenorphine and their potential diversion to street use. He has also examined current and historical drug epidemics, asking the anthropological and epidemiological question why these people in this place at this time? Most recently, he has reflected on all of these years and
their implications for drug policy in his book, Dope Double Agent (2006). In the anthropological tradition of individual life histories and reflexive personal biography, this session brings together Mike and several of his colleagues, who have a varying number of years to the drug field, to reflect on what it has meant to be engaged in this field and the ups and downs of the policy debate. The individual papers in the session will use life history, personal biography, and their own research as
anthropologists in the drug field to reflexively examine drug policy and the impact of the discipline. The point of the papers is to get a sense of the long-term dynamics of the interaction between anthropology and an interdisciplinary and highly charged political domain like the drug field. As we set the conversation in motion, we hope to come up with some general lessons about how drug policy works, doesn't, and might in the short term and over the long haul.
Organizers:
Heather S Reisinger (CADRE - Iowa City VA Healthcare System) and Lee Hoffer (Case Western Reserve University)
Chairs:
Lee Hoffer (Case Western University) and Heather S Reisinger (CADRE - Iowa City VA Healthcare System)
Discussants:
Merrill C Singer (UConn), Richard Stephens (University of Akron) and Michael H Agar (Ethknoworks)
Sponsors:
Wiley-Blackwell
Oxford University Press
Microsoft Research
Introduction
More Like a MASH Unit Than the Front Line
Michael H Agar, Ethknoworks
Heroin Addicts As Computational Agents: Reflections On the Costs and Benefits of Merging Agent-Based Modeling and Ethnography
Lee Hoffer, Case Western Reserve University
Rippin’ and Runnin' with the Dope Double Agent: A Decade of Drug Research and Ethnography with Mike
James Peterson, George Washington University
Break
Vicodin Wars: Providers and Patients Struggle with Pain and Addiction
Owen Murdoch, Lifelong Medical Care
An Unexpected Turn: Trend Theory As a Theoretical and Methodological Guide to Studying Policy Implementation
Heather S Reisinger, CADRE - Iowa City VA Healthcare System
“They’re Legal…Right?”: Non-Medical Pharmaceutical Use by Young Adults In the United States
Gilbert Quintero, University of Montana
Break
"Stumbling” Into the Drug and Alcohol Research Arenas or Reconstructing the Past to Suit the Present
Geoffrey P Hunt, Institute for Scientific Analysis
When Did a Drunk Become An Alcoholic and a Consumer of Opioids Become a Junkie?
John B Page, Miami University
When Opioids Collide: Reflections On 20 Years of Drug Research In Dayton, Ohio
Robert Carlson, Wright University
Discussant
Merrill C Singer, UConn
Discussant
Richard Stephens, University of Akron
Discussant
Michael H Agar, Ethknoworks