RE: drug addiction as meme

From: Lawrence DeBivort (debivort@umd5.umd.edu)
Date: Sun 25 Jan 2004 - 17:00:28 GMT

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    Very interesting, Ray.

    I think that whether or not one decides to call drug addiction a meme, that memetic techniques could be used to address the drug-use 'problem.' The first and essential step must be to decide what outcomes one wants to achieve with regard to drug usage.

    If the goal is to have governments set up a treatment-oriented solution rather than an incarceration one, then memes could be used to induce the government to do so. In a sense, your conference may be precisely about doing this.

    If the goal is to change the behavioral patterns of drug users, then memes could be used to enable this change.

    So, a quick and essential question: what is the goal? What is your goal? What is that of the conference?

    It is an interesting coincidence that on the same day you post this email, I have been asked to look at how an anti-smoking initiative for young adults might be designed. The situations would be similar, I would guess.

    Best regards,

    Lawrence de Bivort

    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk]On Behalf
    > Of Ray Recchia
    > Sent: Sun, January 25, 2004 9:09 AM
    > To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
    > Subject: drug addiction as meme
    >
    >
    > I'm off for a week to attend a judicial conference on setting up special
    > drug courts that focus on treatment instead of incarceration.
    >
    > My question is for the lot of you is: if drug addiction is a meme, are
    > there any insights that a memetic perspective can suggest on how to limit
    > it's spread? A related question: how is this complicated by the
    > involuntary nature of addiction itself?
    >
    > Raymond O. Recchia, Esq.
    >
    >
    > ===============================================================
    > This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
    > Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
    > For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
    > see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
    >

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