Portapotty Experiment Summary

To better understand this topic, I turn to the work of anthropologist Richard Curtis who explored drug use in his article The Portapotty experiment: Neoliberal approach to the intertwined epidemics of opioid- related overdose and HIV/HCV, and why we need cultural anthropologists in the South Bronx. The author wrote his experience conducting a portapotty experiment in South Bronx. Professor Curtis and his team rented two luxury portapotties and placed them nearby a site in a “rabbit hole” also known as one of the homeless hotspots neighborhood in South Bronx. Because they were interested in drug related overdoses that occur in public bathrooms. They believed having the portapotties would encourage the drug users to use them in there than the …show more content…
If the drug user doesn’t evacuate the portapotty within fifteen minutes, there may be an assumption he or she had overedosed. In response to that, a member of Curtis’ team will go and investigate inside the porttapotty and if there is an overdose then that person will make an attempt to reverse overdose by injecting naloxone on the overdosed drug user and finally call the emergency medical service. The irony is the whole experiment did not go according to plan sadly. “The street was mostly deserted.” (Stofko, Curtis, Fuentes…2016, 5) Many drug users came in and out of the hole. The team reached out to them and encouraged them to use the fancy portapotty however, some were concerned that “the portapotties might be an elaborate scheme perpetrated by the police.” (Stofko, Curtis, Fuentes…2016, 5) One of the drug user used but, did not shoot up. Curtis and his team then hypothesized if the drug users were to shoot up drugs they would most likely shoot up in an area where they are not easily visible in public eye and likely to shoot up in groups. They decided to investigate the hole, the area where the drug users go in and out to shoot up