ISSDP

The International Society for the Study of Drug Policy

The International Society for the Study of Drug Policy
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Archived News & Announcements

Please note that this section shows historical News and Announcements that have been posted on the website, most of which are no longer current.

Call for nominations for the ISSDP Excellence in Research Award

ISSDP is launching a new excellence in research award that will recognise a piece of research published in the past 3 years that has made a substantial innovation in how we think about or conduct research in the area of drug policy, including (but not exclusively limited to) the methods and data used for conducting drug policy analysis, the theoretical models of or frameworks guiding work on the agents (consumers, suppliers, regulators) or systems (drug markets, health providers, criminal justice system, social services) that influence drug policy, and/or practical understanding of drug policy in the world today.

Award

The selected individual will receive a formal certificate from the society, a monetary award of $3000 US plus $500 in travel expenses, as well as the opportunity to give a 30-minute presentation at a dinner at the annual ISSDP meeting.

Nominations are due by September 30, 2022

Please click here for further information

The ISSDP Excellence in Research Award

To recognize a piece of research published in the past 3  years that has made a substantial innovation in how we think about or conduct research in the area of drug policy, including (but not exclusively limited to)  the methods and data used for conducting drug policy analysis, the theoretical models of or frameworks guiding work on the agents (consumers, suppliers, regulators) or systems (drug markets, health providers, criminal justice system, social services) that influence drug policy, and/or practical understanding of drug policy in the world today.

Award

The selected individual will receive a formal certificate from the society, a monetary award of $3000 US plus $500 in travel expenses, as well as the opportunity to give a 30-minute presentation at a dinner at the annual ISSDP meeting.

Eligibility criteria

  • English-language publication (article, book, or report)
  • Can be authored by an ISSDP member or a non-ISSDP member
  • If the publication has multiple authors, they will have to choose one person to come to the meeting and accept the award
  • Published since January 1 of ISSDP Conference year minus 3 years.
    • g., For 2022 ISSDP, eligibility date begins 1/1/19.
  • Clock does not start until the research is officially published.
    • g., A paper first made available online in 2017 but not assigned volume/page numbers until 2018 would be eligible for 2021

Nominations

We will create a webform on the Memberclicks membership site where nominations can be submitted by anyone (including the author).

In addition to providing the citation, the nominator must provide a 200-500 word justification for why this piece of research has made a significant contribution to drug policy scholarship (e.g., an important finding that improves how we think about drug policy or drug policy analysis, creation or application of a novel methodology)

Timeline

For this first award, we will be accepting Nominations through June 2022.  Reviews of papers and discussion by the committee will take place by October.  The decision will be announced the first of November, and notified privately, but will not be publicly announced until the annual meeting.

In remembrance of our colleague and friend, Tomáš Zábranský

Tomáš ZábranskýIt is with great sadness that ISSDP reports the passing of our friend and colleague, Tomáš Zábranský MD, PhD. Tomáš was part of ISSDP during its origins, contributing both as a highly-regarded epidemiologist who studied blood-borne diseases and mortality among those who used drugs as well as someone who understood the importance of rigorous research reaching policy makers and the need for objective evaluation of government programs and spending. He was an early ISSDP Board member, serving the organization until 2014, sharing his knowledge and experience of how to build bridges between policy research and policy in practice. In 2014, he became the Advisor on Drug Policy to the Czech Prime Minister and later served as the Envoy of the Czech Minister of Health for the Implementation of Medical Cannabis into the Czech Medical System and for Illegal Drug Issues, thereby playing a key role in the development of the Czech drug policy. He also headed up the Czech National Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (the national focal point). Tomáš never quit his academic scholarship, authoring over 100 publications in peer-reviewed journals in addition to several official reports. His smile, quick wit, and razor focused intellect will be sorely missed by all of us.

For more information on his life and contributions, please see the following:

https://www.remembr.com/tomas.zabransky

https://www.emcdda.europa.eu/news/2021/memoriam-tomas-zabransky_en

Cancellation of the 2021 ISSDP Annual Conference

The ISSDP Board and 2021 Host committee have had to make the difficult decision to fully cancel the 2021 conference in Aguascalientes Mexico due to ongoing uncertainties and restrictions caused by COVID-19.

We are very disappointed that we will not be able to meet as a society in Mexico as originally planned, and hope that we will get another opportunity to meet there in coming years. Moreover, we have further decided that, due to the logistical difficulty of managing an engaging conference when dealing with all the world’s time zones, we will not shift the 2021 conference to a virtual setting. Instead, we  encourage you to participate in the ongoing ISSDP virtual seminar series that we have scheduled in an alternating time zones allowing members to join when it is convenient, and catch taped versions later when it is not convenient.

A complete list of our upcoming mentoring and research seminars can be found here: https://www.issdp.org/webinars.

ISSDP has partnered with MemberClicks

ISSDP has partnered with MemberClicks to create an administrative and communication system for its membership.

As ISSDP is growing and becoming increasingly global, Memberclicks can help us stay on top of membership, registration for events, communications and help us do a better job at facilitating more communication between our members.

Please be sure to update your portfolio by going here:

https://issdp.memberclicks.net/login#/login

Joint ISSDP-UNODC webinar

A scientific look at the 2020 World Drug Report

A joint ISSDP-UNODC webinar took place on 2 July 2020.

The webinar featured an overview of the 2020 World Drug Report by Angela Me (Chief Research and Trend Analysis Branch, UNODC) and an ISSDP panel of experts discussing three key topics: 1) socioeconomic circumstances of heavy use, 2) access to controlled medicine and 3) the rise of meth and stimulants.

Peter Reuter Named UMD Distinguished University Professor

Congratulations to our dear friend and first president of @ISSDrugPolicy for yet another well deserved honor!
Rosalie Liccardo Pacula (ISSDP President)

The Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice is very pleased to announce that our own Peter Reuter has just been named a Distinguished University Professor by the University of Maryland for his influential work on alternative drug policies in the United States and Western Europe. This is the highest honor bestowed on a tenured faculty member in recognition not just of excellence, but of impact and significant contributions to the nominee’s profession. Peter’s appointment follows closely on the appointment of Sally Simpson last year. CCJS has had an incredible track record in receiving DUP awards: Peter is the Department’s fifth faculty member to receive this award.

https://ccjs.umd.edu/feature/peter-reuter-named-umd-distinguished-university-professor

EU Drug Markets — Impact of COVID-19

What effect is COVID-19 having on the drug market in the EU? This joint publication from the EMCDDA and Europol analyses the impact of the pandemic on the market for the main drug types (cannabis, heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, NPS), including demand, production, trafficking and availability (EMCDDA)

Postponement of Annual ISSDP Conference until June 2021

Dear Friends, Participants and Members,

We hope you and your families are safe and managing the global situation as best as you can.

The changing situation with respect to Coronavirus (COVID-19) coupled with its anticipated resurgence in late 2020 has led the ISSDP board to decide to cancel the 2020 ISSDP annual meeting altogether and instead to push back the currently planned meeting to next year.   Our host organization, CIDE in Mexico, has agreed to host the meeting for us next year, June 2-4 2021.  We have pushed the meeting back into early June in hopes that doing so will reduce the risk of us being impacted again next year.   We will be taking down the official host webpage for 2020 in light of this change, but please look for the launch of the new 2021 webpage shortly.   The host committee will be connecting with our currently accepted speakers and presenters to ascertain willingness to continue participation in the program next year and adjustments will be made.

We appreciate everyone’s patience with us, and advice, as we worked through the various scenarios and assessed the impacts of the various options.  Our hope is that by notifying you all of this change now, it may be possible to change travel arrangements without substantial losses.

Please stay safe and we hope to see many of you in Mexico in June 2021!

Warmest regards,

Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, President ISSDP

Caitlin Hughes, Vice-President ISSDP

ISSDP on Twitter

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