Abstract
The unethical, separate, and unequal system of health care for people with substance use disorder (SUD), a condition effecting approximately 20 million people each year, is the product of long standing and mutually reinforcing systems of racism and ableism in the U.S. Addiction exceptionalism in health care access, coverage, and treatment devastate the health and wellbeing of people with SUD and disproportionately harm people of color. Beyond traditional health care settings, the experiences of daily life for people with SUD — especially people of color with SUD — are informed by profound epistemic, racial, and disability injustice that compound these harms.
This article, part of a special issue on Health Law and Anti-Racism, examines the unique disadvantages experienced by Black people and other people of color with SUD in health care, and argue that an intersectional approach to enforcement of disability rights laws (for example, disability critical race theory, or DisCrit) offers an opportunity to ameliorate some of the harms of oppression to this population. Although disability rights law does not explicitly address intersectional discrimination, specific features of the laws are well-suited to address the particular forms of discrimination and disadvantage experienced by people of color with SUD.