Wild Flesh: Explorations in Critical Drug Studies

  ttp://www.mapinc.org/media/479 Author:  John Scheibe VENTURA STAR ADDICTION TEACHES LESSON Ex-Professor Learns About Drugs The Hard Way There were times when Wayne Mellinger felt as if he were standing on the peaks of heaven, filled with a euphoria he'd never experienced. Drugs seemed to transport the former Ventura College instructor to a faraway place where the problems and the struggles of day-to-day existence weren't allowed in. But drugs also brought Mellinger plenty of hell, most recently on Tuesday, when he was sentenced to 240 days in County Jail. A year ago today, Mellinger found himself handcuffed and lying on the ground in downtown Ventura, his face pressed to the sidewalk.  Ventura police had arrested the sociology instructor on suspicion of dealing methamphetamine along the west side of town. Mellinger was taken to county jail, where he spent his 47th birthday with bail set at $50,000.  He was released after posting bail four days later. How Mellinger,...

                                                                            Embodied Ecstasies:   The Sacred Choreography of Party and Play Abstract This flash auto-ethnography explores a single chemsex encounter as a site of embodied ecstasy, ritual care, and queer world-making. Drawing from interactionist sociology, queer phenomenology, and critical drug studies, the narrative refigures substance use not as deviance or pathology but as a sacred choreography of consent, moderation, and mutual attunement. Through detailed ethnographic description and theoretically grounded endnotes, the piece illuminates how harm reduction is interactionally accomplished and spiritually inflected. Set within broader inequities of access and criminalization, Embodied Ecstasies c...