2016-2021: “Heroin: Social ‘Problem’ and Emerging Drug Treatment in Canada. SSHRC, Insight.
The Heroin Study provides a critical socio-historical analysis of heroin and addiction in Canada as a social problem over an extended period of time. The study investigates a recent Charter challenge and related news reportage to better understand how addiction, heroin, criminality, heroin-assisted treatment (HAT, an emerging drug treatment), and the people who use heroin are conceptualized and represented. It also includes the voices of those most directly affected: people receiving HAT.
2011 – 2016: “Accidental ethnography in collaboration with SNAP (SALOME/NAOMI Association of Patients).”
SNAP (formerly NPA) is an independent group of men and women that meet every Saturday at the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users (VANDU). They wished to conduct their own research about their experiences as research subjects for the NAOMI heroin-assisted treatment clinical trial and the SALOME heroin-assisted treatment clinical trial in Vancouver, B.C. I was invited by the group to help facilitate that goal. SNAP advocates for the establishment of permanent heroin-assisted treatment (HAT) programs in Canada. We have been working together for five years.
SNAP: Community-Based Research.NAOMI Patients Association and SALOME/NAOMI Association of Patients Community-Based Research, March 2011 – ongoing
and to provide recommendations for the establishment of permanent HAT programs. The research findings were disseminated at public panels, and through a report and published articles. The first public panel presentation was held at Woodward’s Simon Fraser University in November 2011. The panel, titled, “Naomi research survivors: Experiences and Recommendations,” can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozHCJI6vxOI