Many cities, and especially cities with high real estate prices, have clearly defined zones in which public drug use and sales are implicitly tolerated while more stringent enforcement continues everywhere else. Given that addiction services (like methadone clinics or residential programs) are often mobilized to serve these zones and/or deliberately segregated to remain within them–what should our relationship to these zones be as addiction care providers? The podcast will explore the challenges, problems, and opportunities these zones can create for people who use drugs and the providers who care for them.
Episode release date: April 10, 2025
Educational Objectives:
- Understand the spatial relationships of drug use, addiction treatment services, and deliberately enforced “containment zones” as products of stigma.
- Recognize that the zoning, policing, and urban development strategies of drug containment can become a double-edged sword, providing certain kinds of safety for our patients and our work, and creating other kinds of problems for their well-being.
- Contrast these relationships with the spatial strategies of regulating other substance use and public health policy (i.e. alcohol use and alcohol users).
