Socio-spatial stigmatization and the contested space of addiction treatment: Remapping strategies of opposition to the disorder of drugs

Abstract

In recent years, the Not-In-My-Back-Yard (NIMBY) phenomenon has become increasingly prevalent with regard to harm reduction sites, addiction treatment facilities and their clients. Drawing from a case study of community conflict generated by the relocation of a methadone clinic into a rapidly gentrifying neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, Canada, this article offers a unique analysis of oppositional strategies regarding the perceived (socio-spatial) 'disorder of drugs'. Based on interviews with local residents and business owners this article suggests the existence of three interrelated oppositional strategies, shifting from a recourse to urban planning policy, to a critique of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) practice, to explicit forms of socio-spatial stigmatization that posited the body of the (methadone) 'addict' as abject agent of infection and the clinic as a site of contagion. Exploring the dialectical, socio-spatial interplay between the body of the addict and the social body of the city, this article demonstrates the unique aspects of opposition to the physically, ideologically and discursively contested space of addiction treatment. Representations of the methadone clinic, its clients and the larger space of the neighbourhood, this paper suggests, served to situate addiction as a 'pathology (out) of place' and recast the city itself as a site of safe/supervised consumption.