Open Society Institute Baltimore's Drug Addiction Treatment Program held a presentation featuring Michael Agar, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology at the University of Maryland, College Park on "How Drug Epidemics Work: Implications for Policy and Treatment."
In this forum, Dr. Micahel Agar and his associate, Heather Schact Reisinger, applied "trend theory" to their discussion of the origin and spread of drug epidemics. Using case examples from the Baltimore region's heroin and crack cocaine epidemics, the presenters talked about shifts in drug distribution systems, changes in the population's socio-economic conditions and the development of networks that link the two. The forum addressed ways in which trend theory can inform drug policy, prevention strategies, law enforcement and social service delivery to divert the course and dampen the effects of future drug epidemics.
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