Paper Short Abstract:

The paper examines strategies that the US government has employed to address the opioid epidemic: a 70-year old “war on drugs” and new “harm reduction” strategy and how they fit into the “dominant but dead” neoliberal context as well as the growing emotional upheaval within the American nation.

Paper Abstract:

The paper examines how the supposedly “dead” neoliberalism still dominates the politics of the United States, where an opioid epidemic has been decimating the working-age population for about 25 years now. Around the year 2000 Big Pharma caused numerous people to become addicted to supposedly non-addictive yet extremely powerful opioid painkillers. Then users briefly switched to heroin but the real calamity came in 2013 with the introduction of fentanyl to black market economy. The state’s response was to further expand on the “war on drugs” – a 70-year old approach that has failed remarkably bringing no reduction in drug trafficking but an unprecedented raise in prison population. When Joe Biden became president the strategy change to “harm reduction”, i.e. providing help, medical attention and treatment to people with drug dependency problem. Driven by borderline intense emotions, those affected by the crisis both personally or communally created numerous social movements, most of which are led by family members of those deceased of opioid overdose. They focus either on supporting others who mourn a death of a loved one or influencing lawmakers to either introduce harsher sentences for drug offences or to further “harm reduction” services. Within the American neoliberal system stakes, including those financial ones, are high for each party and each constituency. The result of November presidential election is going to determine which strategy the US is going to employ in dealing with the epidemic that is now a leading cause of death for citizens under the age of 45.