Saris, A. Jamie (2008) An Uncertain Dominion: Irish Psychiatry, Methadone, and the Treatment of Opiate Abuse. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 32 (2).

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Abstract

This paper investigates some productive ambiguities around the medical administration of methadone in the Republic of Ireland. The tensions surrounding methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) are outlined, as well as the sociohistorical context in which a serious heroin addiction problem in Ireland developed. Irish psychiatry intervened in this situation, during a time of institutional change, debates concerning the nature of addiction, moral panics concerning heroin addiction in Irish society and the recent boom in the Irish economy, known popularly as the Celtic Tiger. A particular history of this sort illuminates how technologies like MMT become cosmopolitan, settling into, while changing, local contexts.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Methadone maintenance therapy; Republic of Ireland; Heroin addiction;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Anthropology
Item ID:	1125
Depositing User:	Dr. A. Jamie Saris
Date Deposited:	12 Jan 2009 14:58
Journal or Publication Title:	Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
Publisher:	Springer Science+Business Media,
Refereed:	Yes
URI:
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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