4. Anti-Drug Campaigns

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About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about anti-drug campaigns, focusing in particular on: (i) certain approaches which anti-drug campaigns can take which are not effective, with those non-effective techniques spanning other behaviour-change campaigns, such as ones which aim to combat obesity; (ii) scare tactics, used in past anti-drug campaigns, which have been found to not be successful, including in case studies of these in the United States; (iii) the effectiveness of developing new behavioural norms which do not include drug taking; (iv) some conclusions which have been drawn around the ineffectiveness of purely information-based anti-drug campaigns.

Course

In this course, Dr Ashok Jansari (Goldsmiths, University of London) explores consequences of addiction. In the first lecture, we think about the process by which heroin generates an addiction. In the second lecture, we think about the physiological reward pathway in the brain, specifically the ventral tegmental area, the nucleus accumbens, and the front of the brain. Next, we think about some individual differences in susceptibility to addiction, looking closely at adolescence. In the fourth and final lecture, we think about some anti-drug campaign techniques which have had differing levels of success.

Lecturer

Dr Ashok Jansari is a senior lecturer in the Department of Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London. Dr Jansari’s research interests include memory disorders, prosopagnosia, executive functions, and synaesthesia. Dr Jansari is most famous for his research into prosopagnosia, having made numerous TV appearances, including on BBC1’s The One Show, as well as hosting his own ‘Neuro Talk’ YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/c/DrAshokJansariNeuroTalk/featured

Some of Dr Jansari's recent publications include 'Acquired synaesthesia following 2C-B use' (2019), 'Using virtual reality to investigate multitasking ability in individuals with frontal lobe lesions' (2019), and 'Identification from CCTV: Assessing police super-recogniser ability to spot faces in a crown and susceptibility to change blindness' (2018).