Stay Out of Drug Areas: Drugs, Othering and Regulation of Public Space in Seattle, Washington

Abstract

The drug user is a social scapegoat, often blamed for many social ills. This targeting and abjectification constitutes definitions of ‘the public’ by creating an Other against which the citizen is defined. Using the example of Seattle's Stay Out of Drug Areas ordinance as a case study, this article shows how the creation and enforcement of exclusionary anti-drug zones, produce an idealised notion of public space and its idealised inhabitant, the “citizen”. Modern citizenship pathologises those who are not considered citizens. Drug-using bodies are policed and segregated to reduce disorder in public space. This policing can lead to additional marginalisation of groups that are already marginalised. In this article, it is argued that discourses of abjection, citizenship and public space work together to form socio-spatial norms of appropriate bodies and actions in public space.

The author would like to thank the National Science Foundation, which supported the research upon which this article is based. Thanks are also given to those who were kind enough to lend their time and energy. The author is also grateful to Ronan Paddison, the anonymous referees, Michael Brown and Grant Garstka for their insightful and much-appreciated comments.

Notes

1. Analysis of metaphors and who uses them highlights power relations (Brown, 2000; Cresswell, 1996, 1997, 2001; Derrida, 1991; Pile, 1996). Brown (2000, p. 15) states that “metaphors can carry along with them a whole system or networks of beliefs that do powerful epistemological work but remain taut and unacknowledged”. While the use of metaphor can be problematic, since certain metaphors can connote a myriad of unintended meanings, Cresswell argues that

• Metaphors are acts that encourage some thoughts and actions and discourage others and this has geographical implication. Many are metaphors that tell us what and who belong where, they are, as such, constitutive moments in the spatiality of everyday life (Cresswell, 1997, p. 334; original emphasis).

2. These repercussions can affect both legal and socio-cultural forms of citizenship. In the case of incarceration for certain felonies, voting rights can be restricted.

3. In Kolender v. Lawson (1983), the United States Supreme Court stated that police cannot question or ask for identification without probable cause that some one has committed a crime or is a wanted criminal.

4. Seattle voters passed a law making those who use marijuana the lowest priority for the police with the passing of Initiative 75 in September 2003.

5. In fieldwork, streetwalking prostitutes reported a similar sentiment.

6. Following that record period, King County expanded the number of clinics that dispensed methadone. The wait is now closer to three months.