Drug treatment in contemporary anthropology and sociology

The relatively slim social science literature on drug treatment is reviewed . Attention is paid to the institutionalization of treatment at the meso (l ocal community or clinic) level and the micro (client) level rather than to the more commonly examined macro (societal or national) level. The inter-p enetration across these levels of ideologies and practices around drugs is revealed through discussion of the targeting of certain populations for tre atment, methods of client control in treatment settings, and the client's v iew of treatment. In the literature, drug users are often presented as pass ive individuals, subject to various forms of restrictive social control in therapeutic settings. Their perspective on the processes or efficacy of tre atment is ra rely sought. The concept of drug treatment as necessarily bene ficial to clients is questioned in this paper.