The history of an unnatural disaster--drug overdose--and the emergence
of naloxone as a social and technological solution.
For years, drug overdose was unmentionable in polite society. OD was
understood to be something that took place in dark alleys--an ugly death
awaiting social deviants--neither scientifically nor clinically
interesting. But over the last several years, overdose prevention has
become the unlikely object of a social movement, powered by the miracle
drug naloxone. In OD, Nancy Campbell charts the emergence of naloxone as
a technological fix for overdose and describes the remaking of overdose
into an experience recognized as common, predictable, patterned--and,
above all, preventable. Naloxone, which made resuscitation, rescue, and
"reversal" after an overdose possible, became a tool for shifting law,
policy, clinical medicine, and science toward harm reduction. Liberated
from emergency room protocols and distributed in take-home kits to
non-medical professionals, it also became a tool of empowerment.
After recounting the prehistory of naloxone--the early treatment of OD
as a problem of poisoning, the development of nalorphine (naloxone's
predecessor), the idea of "reanimatology"--Campbell describes how
naloxone emerged as a tool of harm reduction. She reports on naloxone
use in far-flung locations that include post-Thatcherite Britain, rural
New Mexico, and cities and towns in Massachusetts. Drawing on interviews
with approximately sixty advocates, drug users, former users, friends,
families, witnesses, clinicians, and scientists--whom she calls the
"protagonists" of her story--Campbell tells a story of saving lives amid
the complex, difficult conditions of an unfolding unnatural disaster.
