Abstrakt
The mass prescription of buprenorphine medicines (in combination with its addictive potential, lower price, high availability, and guaranteed quality) re-shapes the so-called black drug market in Prague, Czech Republic: buprenorphine medicaments compete with and push out heroin. This article centres on substitution medicines containing the active ingredient buprenorphine, and on the emotional ties between different actors on the buprenorphine market.
I see substitution therapy as an attempt of bio-power to penetrate the undisciplined space of the illegal opiate market. Due to substitution efforts, some heroin users move from the so- called illegal drug scene to the healthcare system, where they start with substitution therapy.
Some drug users subvert these disciplining efforts to their own regimes. Buprenorphine itself is not a passive substance that can be bound or subverted so easily.
On the contrary, buprenorphine products are viable and powerful hybrids that resist the healthcare practices and live a life of their own. Buprenorphine products and the situation in-between practices create dense and tangled emotional multisided networks.
I investigate the ambiguity of the medicine and the consequences of its special position within the healthcare discourse and the illegal drug scene. I capture the multiplicity of the issue with the specific example of the so-called "Buprenorphine crisis", a situation in which emotions and tensions had escalated.