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THE AUTHORS
Dr. Jon E. Zibbell, Ph.D., is a senior research fellow at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in the Division of Viral Hepatitis, where he works on issues concerning injection-related hepatitis C virus (HCV) prevention. Dr. Zibbell is a trained social anthropologist with over 15 years of research experience in the areas of illicit drug use and public health. In addition to research, Dr. Zibbell has served as a consultant for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), advising on issues relating to HIV/HCV prevention and overdoes prevention and has assisted Springfield's Department of Health and Human Services in the design and evaluation of that city's proposed needle exchange program. He has served as primary researcher for an independent, user-run needle exchange program and has volunteered as lead grant writer for several NGOs. Dr. Zibbell's work has appeared in both academic and professional journals, and he contributes regularly to independent media on issues that concern the health and civil rights of people who use drugs.
Notes
2 Elsewhere (Zibbell, Citation2004), I have shown the limiting power of public policy discourse as drug users attempt to penetrate the demanding lingo and poetics of policy-making, and this difficulty holds true for the institutional setting of the welfare state more generally as it defines certain spaces and procedures for involving clients in the process of decision-making.
3 I find drug users’ appropriation of the disparaging terms “addict,” “junkie,” or “dope fiend” to be similar to the way African Americans have appropriated and transformed the N-word or how gays and lesbians embrace the term “queer”: as a means to appropriate what has hitherto been a pejorative designation and transform it into an empowering tool for association, identity, and self-worth.