Users, using, used: A beginner's guide to deconstructing drugs discourse

Using deconstructive tools from contemporary social-political theory, we show how competing understandings of heroin use may mask a different kind of political contest. Exploring the discursive intertwining of people, practices and substances, we challenge the appropriateness of figuring different proposals to govern heroin use as a contest between science and politics, or of health-centred versus crime-centred strategies. We ask after the consequences of figuring criminal and medical arenas as rival frameworks for governing heroin use, and point to the perils associated with the apportionment of blame and victimhood therein. The broader aim underpinning our work is to locate and unpick political resistance to progressive harm minimisation strategies.