Parallel Development: Medicalization and Decriminalization in the Changing Media Framing of the Opioid Overdose Crisis

Drawing on content analysis of 517 New York Times news reports published between 1995 and 2016, the author examines institutionalization opioid responses in terms changing media framing use. The findings indicate that frames were situated lenses medicalization decriminalization. Modes penal social control shifted as early 1990s because budgetary concerns. Drug reform efforts pushed law enforcement agencies to criminalize doctors big pharma. Consequently, medical professionals activists advocated for new cultural frameworks about However, expansion concepts alone did not medicalize use, evidenced by persistent opposing maintenance treatments. Instead, materialized part public health solution when adopted modes control. This article illustrates making a penal-medical nexus regulating drug