Cripistemologies of Drug Use Against Transinstitutional Carceral Ableism

Abstract

Across Canada, thousands of drug users are dying from a toxic illicit drug supply resulting from oppressive drug policies and regulations that reinforce the prohibition and criminalization of drug use and the pathologization and rehabilitation of drug users. Bringing together critical drug studies and critical disability studies, the article contributes cripistemologies of drug use to unpack some of the ways transinstitutional carceral ableism conjoins control strategies of punishment-therapy-abandonment to unite both medical and carceral approaches to disability and drug use that have debilitating and deadly consequences. Against transinstitutional carceral ableism, the article mobilizes cripistemologies of drug use to trouble and reject the disposability of non-rehabilitated drug users central to medical and carceral approaches and instead favour consensual and pleasurable drug use via care practices grounded in interdependence, mutual aid, and solidarity.