Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Reprints and permissions: sagepub. Informal, coercive residential centers for the treatment of addiction are widespread and growing throughout Latin America.
This article draws on findings from a 3-year anthropological study of anexos in Mexico City. Our findings indicate that poverty, addiction, and drug-related violence have fueled the proliferation of anexos. They also suggest that anexos offer valuable health, social, and practical support, but risk exacerbating the suffering of residents through coercive rehabilitation techniques.
Emphasizing this tension, this article considers the complex relationship between coercion and care, and poses fundamental questions about what drug recovery consists of in settings of poverty and violence. Informal, coercive residential centers for the treatment of alcohol and drug addictions are widespread and growing throughout Latin America.
In Mexico, these centers are popularly known as anexos annexes. Alcohol and drug users are usually taken to anexos by force, although some enter voluntarily.
Once there, they are referred to as anexados and remain confined for a period of months to years and are subjected to a mix of interventionsβfrom extended step meetings to physical discipline. Typically, they remain confined until claimed by a relative or deemed successfully rehabilitated. Anexos are a reflection and response to problems with alcohol and drugs and a lack of accessible professional treatment for addiction.
