Opioid Crisis in Canada
A deadly opioid fentanyl, manufactured in China, is now crossing the borders of Canada, putting hundreds of lives at stake. This insidious drug is cheap to synthesize and it can be easily obtained in any quantity online (Howlett 1). It is, however, unwise to blame Chinese clandestine chemists for fentanyl epidemic, since Canada has the world's second-highest per capita consumption of prescription opioids. That is, fentanyl has further exacerbated the long-standing problem of opioid abuse, but it was not the starting point. For an anthropologist, the opioid crisis in Canada can be a manifestation, or a model of several anthropological theories, namely mind-body dualism, and the theory of social suffering.
Mind and body dualism is a metaphysical stance that body and mind are two independent substances. Unlike body, that is extended and material, mind is not extended, yet it can think (Mehta 50). This way, in the paradigm of mind-body dualism, a person lives in two dimensions: one is that of his mind, and the other is that of his body. Physical properties are public, in the sense that they are observable by anyone; the same is not true of mental properties. To put it simply, one exists simultaneously in the mental and in the physical world (Robinson 4).
It is common knowledge that opioid drugs are highly addictive, yet little is said about how opioid addiction manifests itself. Opioids, being powerful painkillers, undermine the body's ability to regulate pain levels on its own, therefore an addict becomes dependent on an opioid to live a relatively normal life. Yet these drugs are also notorious for causing severe psychological addiction, which haunts the addict till death. This way, it is fair to state that the opioid crisis in Canada is happening in both the mental and physical dimensions of the mind-body dualism paradigm. In other words, Canadian drug users take fentanyl to fix their physical problems, and they keep consuming it because of the psychological issues causes by the drug.
The social suffering theory states that suffering results from what political, economic, and institutional power does to an individual. Included under the category of social suffering are conditions than involve health, welfare, and legal issues (Kleinman 3). Social suffering is manifested in poverty, AIDS, drug abuse, etc. Social suffering is not limited to the poor, it is rather shared across high-income and low-income societies.
In the context of the opioid crisis in Canada, the theory of social suffering casts light on the roots of the problem. It goes without saying that the government is to blame for the opioid crisis, since it does not take effective measure to stop Chinese fentanyl from flooding the streets of Canada. Drug availability is no doubt directly linked to drug abuse. Yet little is said about the underlying problems of the Canadian society that drive people using drugs. Statistics show that high levels of stress and low income and drug abuse increases in dose-response manner (“Health Canada” 1). Those who already have an opioid …
