Michelle Smirnova, "The Prescription-To-Prison Pipeline: The Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain" (Duke UP, 2023)

New Books In Public Health · May 15, 2023 · 1h 3m

In The Prescription-To-Prison Pipeline: The Medicalization and Criminalization of Pain (Duke UP, 2023), Michelle Smirnova argues that the ongoing opioid drug epidemic is the result of an endless cycle in which suffering is medicalized and drug use is criminalized. Drawing on interviews with eighty incarcerated individuals in Missouri correctional institutions, Smirnova shows how contradictions in medical practices, social ideals, and legal policies disproportionately criminalize the poor for their social condition. This criminalization further exacerbates and perpetuates drug addiction and…