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Running head: BOSTON AGAINST DRUGS

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BOSTON AGAINST DRUGS

Boston Against Drugs

Diana Carter

University of South Carolina

Introduction

The case under study refers to the Boston Against Drugs (BAD) initiative. This was collaboration between the office of the mayor and various disciplinary corporate within Boston to fight the menace of increased drug and substance abuse within area. The functional and project executive groups were organized into ‘Taskforce Empowerment Mobilization’ TEAMs which comprised business owners, residents and a select group of individuals from the government working in collaboration to reduce and fight drug and substance abuse within the area. The office of the mayor was particularly involved in this fight on a much larger scale with various financial commitments aimed at sustaining the program through its duration of execution. The program was generally organized under a corporate director who was, among others, charged with the responsibility of overseeing the operations of the unit and negotiating for funding from both the federal government and other interested parties. Apart from financial grants from the federal government, the unit managed to secure funding from partnering corporate which committed to commit $5,000 to various TEAM groups annually.

Contextual Analysis

The antecedents which led to the establishment of the BAD team were instigated by the Ray Flynn, the then Mayor and the City Hall Staff. It was adequately determined that drug and substance abuse were rampant and the general trend was in such a way that it indicated a continued rise of the vice. Therefore, the officials determined that it would be important to address this important problem. Flynn’s office mostly comprised dealing with members of all levels from within the community. He figured that his office would serve a critical role in spearheading the agenda of the BAD unit by presenting the whole concept as a community problem that needed a community investment in order to be solved. Flynn’s emphasis on service oriented persuasion techniques in search of potential partners bore fruit from corporate which were already partnering with various schools as. This made it relatively affordable to execute the plan to its logical conclusion as had already been planned.

Problem statement

The health of the Boston residents was fast deteriorating due to rampant drug and substance abuse including tobacco and alcohol abuse. The problem surrounding the abuse of drugs had to be addressed in a way that involved the entire community, hence the mayor’s decisive decision to incorporate various stakeholders from various sectors such as the corporate sector and the general public forming the BAD TEAM responsible for addressing the drug problem within Boston.

Alternative Strategies

There exists various approaches that could alternatively be used the drug problem within Boston. This include conducting civic education against drugs in public places such as schools and parks and conducting a campaign against the use of drugs on various channels such as the radio, television an through publicly placed posters. Conducting a civic education has the advantage of the information being relayed out to many young people who are usually the common culprits of drug and substance abuse (Arceneaux, 2010). However, this approach may fail to accommodate people who have little contact with public life engagements. Conducting campaigns over radio and television will ensure that the audience being addressed is much bigger hence increasing the chances of the information being much more effective (Cukier, 2005).

Recommendation

The recommended strategy in addressing the fore stated problem would be conducting medial based campaigns to educate people against alcohol and abusing various drugs. This strategy is particularly effective because it ensure that a larger population is addressed in anti-drug educative campaigns. The effectiveness of this strategy can be determined through direct reporting on the number of people visiting drug rehabilitation centers and a general decrease the number of people under such programs.

Ways of Knowing

Drug related propositions are global challenges that many individual can intuitively associate with. Therefore, the problem presented by the Boston BAD TEAM is among other many empirical examples that most people can actually think about when presented with the case of a city trying to deal with such problem.

References Arceneaux, N. (2010). Wanamaker's Depaartment Store and teh Origins of Electronic Media. Technology and Culture, 809-828. Cukier, W. (2005). Radio Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism (review). Enterprise & Society, 343-345.