In a Time of Crisis: The Political Temporality of Irish Harm Reduction

Epidemics of drug use present potent moments of social and political crisis. This is especially the case in Ireland, where drug-related crises have historically mobilized community activism and government policy. Contemporary crises, including an epidemic of poly-substance use, a panic over drugs litter in public, and feuding crime families, coincide with a push toward harm reduction programs and decriminalization policies. The discourses of crisis appear to be integral components of the work of implementing drug policy. In this regard, crisis functions rhetorically. By bringing an issue to public attention and bolstering it with a sense of urgency, it provides an opening for interested parties to motivate an agenda. Yet this rhetoric also invokes a certain temporality -- an interruption of everyday life that calls forth knowledgeable experts and institutional authorities to restore normality. This promise of return to prior conditions tends to limit the imagination of alternative possibilities and indeed, possible futures. In contrast, the practices of harm reduction resist "crisis time," deploying a different temporal framing of problems and interventions. In doing so, the ethos of harm reduction not only provides a more pragmatic therapeutic response to drug-related problems, it also models an alternative to the politics of crisis.