The Drug Reconsidered from a STS. Perspective: Stomachs, Rationalities, and Efficacy in Self-Medication Practices with Stimulants

Abstract

This paper characterizes and  reflects on automedication practices between medicine  students in a public university in Chile, and the ways in which we  can account for their efficacy.  To achieve this, we discuss data from an ethnographic  investigation centered on these
practices, focusing particularly on the way in which the  bioavailability of  psychostimulant medications connects the world of the laboratory with the social world
of its consumption practice. We show how this concept is  relevant when giving  anthropological accounts of pharmaceutically mediated  practices, to the extent that it orders experiences that emerge from consumption. We  conclude with two contributions to the public health approach of this type of practices, sustained in the notion of use ecologies, encouraging a critical view on the explanatory statute of rational drug use and risk groups.