Disrupting and Maintaining Prohibition: Institutional and Grassroots Harm Reduction Practices in Ottawa

Harm reduction is often proposed to be a unique response from prohibition.Where prohibition restricts and punishes most activities related to drugs, the term "harm reduction" is used to denote a number of provisions (e.g.equipment for using, a place to use).In this dissertation I trouble this distinction.I argue that the relationship between harm reduction and prohibition is more dynamic.Rather than operating in separate silos, harm reduction is actively constructed by, while also shaping and influencing, prohibition.For this research I conducted participant observations at two harm reduction services in Ottawa, Canada.The first service is operated by a community health centre, and the second is provided by a grassroots community organization.Engaging in the provision of harm reduction at these two sites demonstrated that practices of harm reduction and prohibition shape and influence each other.In particular I found that harm reduction and prohibition are connected through their legality, including the formal and quotidian ways that our actions are guided by and produced as legal.I use a multipronged critical legal studies framework to draw out these various ways that law is produced and experienced.In specific I demonstrate that the relationship between harm reduction and prohibition is a product of: grassroots efforts to disrupt prohibition and legal and political efforts to maintain it; spatial and temporal relations; and exclusionary strategies of control.Examining the relationship between harm reduction and prohibition provides insight into the potential for and barriers to efforts that could address the harms people who use drugs experience on a day-to-day basis, including the threat of criminalization and fatal overdose.iii Acknowledgements I am so deeply grateful to all of the people who shared a part of their life with me, included me in the harm reduction community in Ottawa, and allowed me to engage in transformative, direct action with them.Your resilience, strength, compassion, and the experiences we shared continue to motivate me to advocate for drug policy reform.Getting the opportunity to conduct this research is a privilege I hold close to my heart.From my heart to yours, words cannot express the appreciation and respect I have for everyone who made this project possible!The path to completing this dissertation was long and winding.I could not have finished it without the guidance and supervision of Dr. Stacy Douglas.Stacy, you were attune to the support I needed and helped me find my way forward.You listened to me, distilled my arguments, and helped me sculpt this project.I cannot thank you enough for providing me the opportunity to forward this work on my own terms.To my committee members, Dr. Marie-Ève Sylvestre and Dr. Dale Spencer, who travelled this path along with me, thank you! Marie-Ève, I am so grateful that you invested in this project and in me.Your guidance and approach to teaching enabled me to expand my comprehension of law, and continues to push me to go further

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