Online Drug Scenes and Harm Reduction From Below as Phronesis

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical critique of the notion of harm reduction on the basis of an empirical investigation of a variety of online manifestations of drug culture. Taking a multicase study approach to drug use–related forums, blogs, and “story sites” focused on novel psychoactive substances/“legal high” use and nonmedicinal prescription drug use, our analysis leads us to describe the culture of “harm reduction from below” in terms of the Aristotelian concept of phronesis. We argue that the peer-to-peer co-creation of knowledge, sharing, and support constitutes an emergent and constantly evolving form of “practical wisdom” with respect to drugs. Drawing on Flyvbjerg’s accounts of phronetic social science as a practice, which proposes a permeable boundary between theoretical and practical inquiry, and Stenger’s account of the “collective voice from below” as always embedded within an “ecology of practices,” we offer an interpretation of the online dimension of drug taking in terms of drug users’ shared aim of “doing drugs well.” The investigation of online life in terms of the multiple contexts of drug-related communicative exchange thus allows us to identify harm reduction from below as an ethical practice inherent in a variety of online drug scenes.