Policing harm reduction: A case study of who counts as human

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Sociology
• Criminology

Background:

• Windsor, Ontario, experienced significant delays in implementing a harm reduction strategy by equipping police officers with naloxone, a medication that reverses opioid overdoses.
• This delay occurred despite escalating opioid-related deaths and the concurrent COVID-19 pandemic, making Windsor an outlier among Canadian cities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the protracted implementation of naloxone for police in Windsor, Ontario.
• To examine the media discourse surrounding the "naloxone issue" through the lens of human disposability theory.
• To understand the ideological underpinnings of resistance to harm reduction measures for people who use drugs (PWUD).

Main Methods:

• Qualitative analysis of media coverage related to the "naloxone issue" in Windsor.
• Application of theories of human disposability to interpret debates and discussions.
• Examination of underlying logics and unstated positions in public discourse.

Main Results:

• Media coverage and administrative delays reveal an ideological devaluation of people who use drugs (PWUD), framing their lives as "wasted" and them as "disposable."
• The controversy surrounding naloxone for police in Windsor demonstrates that the humanity of PWUD was debated, unlike that of police officers.
• The eventual decision to equip officers was framed around police safety, particularly protection from perceived threats posed by homeless individuals.

Conclusions:

• The delay in equipping police with naloxone in Windsor was driven by the disposability of people who use drugs (PWUD).
• The "naloxone issue" controversy underscored a societal debate about the value of PWUD's lives versus the self-evident humanity of law enforcement.
• The ultimate implementation prioritized police safety, revealing that the core issue was determining whose lives were deemed worthy of protection.