Law Commons^™

Drug Dealing And The Internal Morality Of Medicine, Matt Lamkin

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

Which practices qualify as “medical” in nature? This question has important legal implications. Every state has laws prohibiting the “unauthorized practice of medicine.” Health insurance policies generally limit coverage to procedures that are “medically necessary.” And physicians can be prosecuted as drug traffickers if they prescribe controlled substances without a “legitimate medical purpose.” Each of these questions—and many others—hinge on how medicine is defined.

As with many common terms, we all have a general understanding of what medicine is and this heuristic suffices to carry us through our daily lives without complication. Yet when called on to produce a precise …

Involuntarily Committed Patients As Prisoners, Matt Lamkin, Carl Elliott

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

Regulating Identity: Medical Regulation As Social Control, Matt Lamkin

Articles, Chapters in Books and Other Contributions to Scholarly Works

New biomedical technologies offer growing opportunities not only to prevent and treat illnesses, but also to change how healthy people think, feel, behave, and appear to others. Controversies over these nontherapeutic practices are a pervasive feature of contemporary American culture, from students on "study drugs" and cops on steroids to skin-lightening by black celebrities and the over-prescription of antidepressants. Yet the diversity of these controversies often masks their common root-namely, disputes about the propriety of using medical technologies as tools for shaping one's identity.

Some observers believe these so-called "enhancement" practices threaten important values, offering unfair advantages to users and …