Intoxication and US Culture: An Interview With Craig Reinarman

Publication Date

4-1-2016

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This issue of NANO: New American Notes Online explores intoxication in ways that differ from typical drug and public health discourses, and popular representations. Often discussions about the experience of intoxication are sidestepped in social and academic discourse. When we do address intoxication, it is fraught with social tensions related to harm to the self, others, and the community. Craig Reinarman has consistently included normalized substance use and pleasure in his exploration of issues related to substance use. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with him about what Huxley called 'the principal appetites of the soul.' Professor Reinarman's research and professional service have focused on drug use, addiction, law, treatment, and policy. He is the author of American States of Mind (1987) and co-author of Cocaine Changes: The Experience of Using and Quitting (1991) and Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice (1997). In his most recent book, Expanding Addiction: Critical Essays (2014), Reinarman and co-editor Robert Granfield highlight the historical and cultural interstices through which the disease concept of addiction has been typically constructed while offering a critique of the reductionist 'chronic relapsing brain disease' model. He co-edited the New Social Studies on Alcohol and Drugs book series (SUNY Press) and has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization's Program on Substance Abuse in Geneva, Switzerland.

Publication Title

New American Notes Online (NANO)

Issue

9

Publisher Policy

open access

Open Access Status

OA Journal

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