“Absolutely the worst drug I’ve ever seen”: Risk, governance, and the construction of the illicit fentanyl “crisis”
| Published date | 01 November 2020 |
| Date | 01 November 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480619841907 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1362480619841907
Theoretical Criminology
2020, Vol. 24(4) 612 –632
© The Author(s) 2019
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DOI: 10.1177/1362480619841907
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“Absolutely the worst drug I’ve
ever seen”: Risk, governance,
and the construction of the
illicit fentanyl “crisis”
Liam Kennedy
King’s University College at Western University Canada
Madelaine Coelho
King’s University College at Western University Canada
Abstract
In this article, we analyze 1027 articles published in four newspapers in order to trace
the construction of the fentanyl “crisis” across social contexts. Our analysis reveals
that Chinese producers and Mexican cartels were censured for bringing this deadly
substance into Canada and the United States as the number of fentanyl-related deaths
and overdoses increased. Indeed, news media construct this “illicit” form of fentanyl
as foreign and risky. We contend that this coverage diverts attention away from the
consequences of the neoliberal policies that contribute to opioid use and plays an
important role in stoking feelings of insecurity that justify a disconcertingly wide range
of governing practices that aim to secure the homeland against external threats, advance
the state’s interests abroad, and discipline larger swaths of the population at home.
Keywords
Drug scare, fentanyl, insecurity, media, xenophobia
In recent years the opioid fentanyl, a drug regularly used to treat chronic pain in cancer
patients or those in palliative care (e.g. Ahmed, 2016; Gallant, 2013), has been likened to
Corresponding author:
Liam Kennedy, Department of Sociology, King’s University College Western University, London, Ontario,
N6A2M3, Canada.
Email: Lkenne56@uwo.ca
841907TCR0010.1177/1362480619841907Theoretical CriminologyKennedy and Coelho
research-article2019
Article
Kennedy and Coelho 613
a “weapon of mass destruction” (Lewis et al., 2017: A01), referred to as an “instrument
of death” (Burton, 2016), and said to be “destroying families from coast to coast” (Bever,
2016). Struck by the daily reporting of fentanyl-related deaths and overdoses in the fall
of 2017, the authors set out to critically interrogate how news media covered these
events. Specifically, we analyzed 1027 articles drawn from four newspapers published
between 2012 and 2017 so as to better understand the social construction of fentanyl
users and proposed solutions to this “epidemic”.
Our analysis reveals that Chinese producers and Mexican cartels were censured for
bringing this deadly substance into Canada and the United States as the number of
fentanyl-related deaths and overdoses increased. Indeed, news media construct this
“illicit” form of fentanyl as foreign and risky. We argue that this coverage diverts atten-
tion away from the consequences of neoliberal policies and plays an important role in
stoking feelings of insecurity. This, in turn, justifies the closing of borders to thwart or
remove external threats, informs diplomacy, and legitimates an assortment of new gov-
erning practices that target broader segments of the population at home. Specifically, in
the wake of the fentanyl “crisis”, government agents have been empowered to collect
data about and inspect all international shipments (e.g. Government of Canada, 2017),
foreign powers have been pressured to strengthen oversight and regulation under the
threat of tariffs (e.g. McKenna, 2018), and medical professionals have been subject to
new guidelines while patients are increasingly monitored and responsibilized (e.g.
Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, 2017).
Drugs scares in the media
Mass media are more than a conduit, simply transmitting messages to the public. Instead,
they act as a filter and play a key role in the construction of social problems (see Best,
1990; Surette, 2015). In this article we interrogate their part in framing substance use and
in creating drug scares. During these scares, substances and their users are blamed for a
wide variety of social problems that threaten “the very order and moral health of social
universes” (Alexandrescu, 2014: 28; Reinarman and Levine, 1989). For instance, during
the 1980s, crack cocaine was ostensibly the “cause of America’s troubles”, including
crime and urban decay (Reinarman and Levine, 1989: 543). Other scholars (e.g. Hughes
et al., 2011; Manning, 2006; Taylor, 2008) have similarly found that news media frame
drug use as connected to, or the cause of, crime. Decades before the crack cocaine scare,
alcohol was blamed for devastating families (see Reinarman and Levine, 1989) and LSD
supposedly posed a threat to middle-class morality and work ethic (Goode, 2008). In
more recent years, mephedrone has been linked to violence, anti-social behavior, and
suicide by British news media (Alexandrescu, 2014), Scottish news media have sug-
gested “alcopops” led to an increase in underage drinking (Forsyth, 2001), and metham-
phetamine use has come to symbolize the precarity of white privilege (see Linnemann
and Wall, 2013; Murakawa, 2011). In this last example, meth supposedly physically
transforms individuals who use the drug, leaving them with lesions as well as decayed
teeth and rendering them “white trash”. Anti-drug campaigns like the Meth Project foster
a particular worldview that generates anxiety (Linnemann et al., 2013). The fear associ-
ated with meth, Murakawa (2011) argues, is one of white status decline and economic
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