Evidence map›Paper›PMID 33485741›Full record

ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2021

Ontological journeys: The lifeworld of opium across the Afghan-Iranian border in/out of the pharmacy.

Maziyar Ghiabi

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. The cultural turn in understanding 'addiction'.The International journal on drug policy · 2024
    Article
  2. Critique of everyday narco-capitalism.Third world quarterly · 2022
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

1 author.

Maziyar GhiabiSOAS, University of London, Thornhaugh Street, London WC1H 0XG, UK; College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter, UK. Electronic address: m.ghiabi@exeter.ac.uk.

Funding

Wellcome Trust 101988
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

How can we conceive alternative policy models that embrace the empirical potentialities emerging from the lifeworld of drugs? The article reflects on this question, concluding that to reassess and to reinvent current policies on drugs, we need to think with a political ontology. Incidentally, the article also responds to the critique dismissing ontological inquiries as obstructing - or, at best, not informing - alternative drug policies. In an archaeological approach inspired by the work of Giorgio Agamben, the article unearths the case study of opium maintenance programme in Iran (1969-79), a forgotten policy experiment in an understudied and yet crucial geo-cultural environment for the global study of drugs. Mobilising the conceptual framework of ontological journeys, the article recomposes the lifeworld of opium within the horizons of transformative cultural practices, international borders, policy regimes and public ethics. Here, the materiality of drug consumption under the maintenance policy links with the changes in opium's transnational political economy and with shifting regimes of health and bioethical orthodoxy. Ontological journeys, hence, develop in a fluid space and time, making it possible to illuminate the lifeworld of drugs in places and times hitherto deserted by global policy studies. In building theoretical reflections upon a non-Western case, the article also incites the possibility of theory beyond Eurocentric knowledge and Euromerican cases. In this way, the article's purpose is to analyse the be-coming of opium beyond 'good' or 'evil', as a 'medicine' or a 'drug' and its real or perceived classification as 'licit' or 'illicit' across the Afghan-Iranian border. In conclusion, the article reflects upon the significance of this forgotten policy experiment, understood as an ontological journey, for contemporary drug policy and drug studies, but also for reinventing notions of care, welfare and health.

Indexed as

PharmaciesPharmacyHumansIranOpiumPublic PolicyOpiumAfghanistanGiorgio AgambenIranMaintenance policyOntologyOpiumSocial theory

Identifiers

PMID33485741
PMCPMC7611031

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.