Addiction Medicine Grand Rounds: Living and Dying in “the Best Place on Earth”: An Ethnography of Young People Who Use Drugs in Vancouver

The Yale Program in Addiction Medicine is pleased to welcome Danya Fast, PhD, as speaker for Addiction Medicine Grand Rounds on January 23, 2024.

This event will be held in virtual format.

Title: Living and Dying in “the Best Place on Earth”: An Ethnography of Young People Who Use Drugs in Vancouver

Learning Objectives:

1. Describe how senses of place in the city of Vancouver and intensities like boredom and eventfulness can shape forms of life, death and harm among young people who use drugs;
2. Examine how forms of care, such as government-subsidized supportive housing and substance use treatment, can lead to senses of “getting lost” and “going nowhere” in the city, to impact drug use practices among young people;
3. Identify some of the ongoing affects (felt intensities) and effects of colonialism in the city among Indigenous young people who use drugs.

Danya Fast, PhD, is medical anthropologist conducting research in Vancouver, Canada and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Her work in these settings has broadly focused on understanding the relationship between health and place among young people who use drugs in the margins of the city. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine (Division of Social Medicine) at UBC and an Associate Member of the Department of Anthropology. She is also a Research Scientist at the British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, where she co-leads the Youth Health Research Program.

Addiction Medicine Rounds are CME accredited. Each session will be assigned 1 AMA PRA Category 1 CreditsTM.