Understanding the Opioid Epidemic as an Environmental Injustice

Abstract

The conceptual link between racial disparities in opioid use–related deaths and environmental justice, a valuable socioecologic paradigm for contextualizing how racial vulnerabilities are ecologically forged, has not been duly explored. Exploring and filling this gap, this article highlights four primary ways through which racial disparities in opioid use manifest as a matter of environmental (in)justice, namely in terms of (1) distributive justice (elevated availability and criminalization of opioids in racially minoritized communities), (2) capability justice (limited access to or uptake of mental health treatment, buprenorphine providers, and harm reduction resources in said communities), (3) recognitional justice (disproportionate placement of eyesore treatment and harm reduction sites in said communities), and (4) procedural justice (biocolonial exploitation and commodification of Indigenous plants and Chinese/Asian opium). In delineating the various modes of community and individual-level deprivation that are implicated, this article arrives at a socioecologic model focused on characterizing and addressing the environmental injustice perpetrated through opioid distribution, use, and management in racially minoritized spaces.