Citation

Sered SS. Int. J. Drug Policy 2019; 71: 47-55.

Affiliation

Department of Sociology, Suffolk University, 73 Tremont Street, Boston, MA, 02108, United States. Electronic address: ssered@suffolk.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.drugpo.2019.05.017

PMID

31226503

Abstract

This paper reflects upon ethnographic work carried out in a suburban Massachusetts town that has experienced particularly high rates of opioid mis/use. In open-ended conversations, residents attributed the local opioid crisis to institutional betrayals of various sorts. Building upon the idea that social capital tends to be health-enhancing, this paper traces the decline in the infrastructure of social capital and the associated decline in cultural capital or scripts for making sense out of life's challenges.

Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Cultural capital; Opioid crisis; Social capital