"A member of the palliative care team meets Alicia for the first time. They meet in the infusion bay, where the thin curtains offer symbolic privacy. Alicia is in her early 60s, and had gone to the doctor with a persistent cough. Subsequent tests revealed metastatic lung cancer. She has just finished her first cycle of first line chemotherapy, which she tolerated well. A quick review of her chart reveals no obvious physical symptoms such as pain or shortness of breath. Her social history is notable for the recent death of her husband. She has one adult child, who lives nearby"--

This book explores the lived experiences of people who interact with needle and syringe program services in Western Sydney, Australia, including participants and industry workers. It locates the research within the wider context of harm reduction and drug policies. It addresses the question "what do needle and syringe programs do?" and seeks to unpack the agency of human and non-human factors to consider the ‘more than human’ effects of these programmes. Alongside a critical materialist perspective used to interpret the empirical findings, the book demonstrates that needle and syringe programs create new possibilities for engaging with the world by changing the material conditions of illicit drug consumption. It draws on the conceptual contributions of post-humanist thinking from assemblage theory, actor-network theory, and cognate scholarship. Consideration is given to transferable findings and insights for international contexts. The book speaks to scholars and postgraduate students in the areas such as sociology, criminology, social work, critical public health, cultural studies, and related fields.

This volume addresses the interface of two major national problems: the epidemic of HIV-AIDS and the widespread use of illegal injection drugs. Should communities have the option of giving drug users sterile needles or bleach for cleaning needs in order to reduce the spread of HIV? Does needle distribution worsen the drug problem, as opponents of such programs argue? Do they reduce the spread of other serious diseases, such as hepatitis? Do they result in more used needles being carelessly discarded in the community? The panel takes a critical look at the available data on needle exchange and bleach distribution programs, reaches conclusions about their efficacy, and offers concrete recommendations for public policy to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS. The book includes current knowledge about the epidemiologies of HIV/AIDS and injection drug use; characteristics of needle exchange and bleach distribution programs and views on those programs from diverse community groups; and a discussion of laws designed to control possession of needles, their impact on needle sharing among injection drug users, and their implications for needle exchange programs.

The new WHO guidelines provide recommended steps for safe phlebotomy and reiterate accepted principles for drawing, collecting blood and transporting blood to laboratories/blood banks. The main areas covered by the toolkit are: 1. bloodborne pathogens transmitted through unsafe injection practices;2. relevant elements of standard precautions and associated barrier protection;3. best injection and related infection prevention and control practices;4. occupational risk factors and their management.

This book serves as a valuable reference source, providing a comprehensive review of syringe driver use and administration of drugs via CSCI, a safe and effective way of drug administration when other routes are inappropriate.

This book addresses the history of harm reduction. It evaluates the consequences and constraints, stakes and costs of the policy of needle exchange for the purposes of harm prevention and health research. Vitellone situates the syringe at the centre of empirical research and theoretical analysis, challenging existing accounts of drug injecting which treat the syringe as a dead device that simply facilitates social action between humans. Instead, this book complicates the relationship between human and object – injecting drug user and syringe – to ask what happens if we see the object as an intra-active part of the sociality that constitutes injecting practices. And what kinds of methods are required to generate a social science of the syringe that is able to measure injecting sociality? Social Science of the Syringe develops material methodologies and epistemologies of injecting drug use to enact the syringe as an object of intellectual inquiry. It draws on the methodologies of social anthropology, Actor-Network-Theory, Deleuze’s empiricism and new feminist materialism to move towards materially-engaged knowledge production. This interdisciplinary approach improves understandings of the causes and effects of injecting behaviour and the problem of needle sharing, as well as providing a more robust empirical framework to evaluate the motivations and consequences of drug use and drug policy. This book will appeal to researchers and students interested in the sociology of health and illness, STS, Actor-Network Theory, empirical sociology, medical anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, addiction theory and harm reduction.

This book addresses the history of harm reduction. It evaluates the consequences and constraints, stakes and costs of the policy of needle exchange for the purposes of harm prevention and health research. Vitellone situates the syringe at the centre of empirical research and theoretical analysis, challenging existing accounts of drug injecting which treat the syringe as a dead device that simply facilitates social action between humans. Instead, this book complicates the relationship between human and object – injecting drug user and syringe – to ask what happens if we see the object as an intra-active part of the sociality that constitutes injecting practices. And what kinds of methods are required to generate a social science of the syringe that is able to measure injecting sociality? Social Science of the Syringe develops material methodologies and epistemologies of injecting drug use to enact the syringe as an object of intellectual inquiry. It draws on the methodologies of social anthropology, Actor-Network-Theory, Deleuze’s empiricism and new feminist materialism to move towards materially-engaged knowledge production. This interdisciplinary approach improves understandings of the causes and effects of injecting behaviour and the problem of needle sharing, as well as providing a more robust empirical framework to evaluate the motivations and consequences of drug use and drug policy. This book will appeal to researchers and students interested in the sociology of health and illness, STS, Actor-Network Theory, empirical sociology, medical anthropology, social and cultural anthropology, addiction theory and harm reduction.

THE DETECTIVE is a bit of back story for Frederico Esteban Guissepe Gonzaga and his search for the family of Quentin Barnes. THE DETECTIVE takes place from roughly March 2683, to March 2684. Where applicable, the chapters are named to map to the action in THE ALL-PRO (Book III in the Galactic Football League series). The story actually begins, however, on unknown dates during Book II, THE STARTER. In terms of the GFL timeline, THE DETECTIVE runs from roughly Week Seven of the 2683 regular season in THE STARTER through Week Ten of the 2684 regular season in THE ALL-PRO. This novella is part of the Galactic Football League series, which is described as THE BLIND SIDE meets THE GODFATHER meets STAR WARS.

A body, a disappearance, just another hot summer in upstate New York. It’s July when antiquities appraiser Annalisse Drury reaches her family’s small-town farm to consult with the trusted aunt who raised her. She learns that her beloved homestead—the one she expects to inherit—is for sale. While Annalisse reels at the betrayal and her shattered dreams, the Walker Farm ranch manager discovers a corpse in the barn. Officials close the suspected murder scene, and Annalisse seeks refuge with her aunt at Alec Zavos’s rural estate in New York’s Catskill Mountains. Then Aunt Kate vanishes. Annalisse solicits the help of Greek tycoon, Alec Zavos, even though their rocky romance has dissolved into routine separation. What began as hope on Crete nine months ago has eaten away at Annalisse’s hope for a future with him. In Spent Identity, Annalisse and Alec come together for the second time and find themselves in the center of not one mystery, but several. Where is Kate, and why sell her farm now? Is the dead man a coincidence or a clue to the aunt’s disappearance? John Doe’s identity may hold needed answers to solve the puzzle before Kate’s unstable health issues make her rescue impossible. The clock ticks, and a vengeful murderer is in charge…