Int J Drug Policy. 2000 Dec 01;11(6):381-385. doi: 10.1016/s0955-3959(00)00063-3.
The International journal on drug policy
Cruts
PMID: 11099918 DOI: 10.1016/s0955-3959(00)00063-3
This article invites you to a social constructionist view on the issue of drug-related death. Social constructionism is often misunderstood for denying plain facts. It sure is a fact that there are deadly doses of legal and illegal substances. In this sense it is a truism that drugs kill people. Nonetheless, it is argued that reducing the causes of death to a certain drug as the essential underlying cause of death is a social construction. A case is discussed to demonstrate that a drug-related death can just as well be seen as a free-market death. Free markets kill people at least as much as drugs do. It is argued that drug-related death is a social construction, because attributing a death to a drug is based on unfalsifiable counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thoughts about what the world would look like if there were no drugs, are seen as expressing one's view of life.
