News & Announcements

Registration for the one-day ISSDP conference is Lisbon is now open.

To register for the conference, please go to  https://issdp.memberclicks.net/pre-lisbon-conference-registration

The Stanford Prevention Research Center (SPRC) is recruiting an outstanding full-time academic researcher at  the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor in the University Tenure Line for appointment in the Department of  Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The successful candidate will be or demonstrates the  potential to be a leader in academic research with a focus on tobacco and/or cannabis marketing, policy, and/or regulatory science. Of particular interest is developing the evidence to facilitate California’s progress toward achieving the tobacco endgame with national implications.

More information

The SSA is now accepting abstracts for oral presentations (deadline: 3 July 2022) and poster presentations (deadline: 14 August 2022) for its Annual Conference on 3 and 4 November 2022.

More Information

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.

Applications close on 2 May 2022

Established in 1986, the National Drug Research Institute (NDRI) is one of the largest and most respected centres of alcohol and other drug research expertise in Australia. Its mission is to conduct and disseminate high quality research that supports evidence informed policy, strategies and practice to prevent and minimise alcohol and other drug-related health, social and economic harms.

Collaboration, engagement and impact are key features of NDRI’s research activities and the Institute works closely with many government and non-government agencies, communities and research centres across Australia and internationally. The Institute receives core funding from the Australian Government Department of Health (AGDH) through the Drug and Alcohol Program, and significant funding from Curtin University, with additional research funds awarded from a variety of competitive national and international granting bodies.

Given its mission and approach, the NDRI sits within the new Curtin enAble Institute which aims to become the leading research-into-practice and research-into-training institute in Australia, whose sole purpose is to support persons of all levels of ability, or those living with mental health challenges, to live personally meaningful and enriching lives.

The Director will be expected to grow NDRI’s footprint to be aligned with the ambition of the enAble Institute. As such, the Director will have an outstanding record of research achievement and reputation in the field of alcohol and other drug use and related harm. They will demonstrate a passion for a collaborative approach to nurture and grow research groups and translate discovery into output that is valued by policy makers, practitioners and communities in Australia and internationally.

Candidates are expected to also demonstrate a mix of strategic leadership, entrepreneurial, fundraising and relationship building capabilities that will allow them to build and lead a sustainable and globally recognised Institute.

To learn more about the role and to view the position brochure, please copy and paste this link into your browser:

https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/sender/?s=download&token=7b174393-8eec-4a72-b512-f74037379e08

Why choose Curtin?

Vibrant campus with gym, child care, wellness programs, medical and counselling services
A major global player, with well-integrated campuses in Singapore, Malaysia, Mauritius and Dubai.

For further information on Curtin and our employee benefits visit https://about.curtin.edu.au/jobs/

Work Requirements

Prior to appointment, the recommended applicant/s will undergo screening and reference checks and will need to have a current criminal record check in accordance with the University’s National Police Certificate Assessment Procedures
COVID 19 – Vaccination Policy

Candidates should note that Curtin University has implemented a COVID-19 Vaccination Policy and Procedures which covers all staff, students, campuses and activities, effective 21 February 2022.

If you are invited to attend the next stage of assessments, you may be required to provide evidence of your COVID-19 vaccination status (or formally granted exemption) upon arrival, and if you are offered a role at Curtin, you will be required to provide evidence of your COVID-19 vaccination or exemption status prior to commencing employment.

To learn more about this unique opportunity please contact the executive search firm Boyden and speak to Alun Parry or Elaine Dolan on +61 2 9225 7400 or via elaine.dolan@boyden.com noting that applications will close on 2nd May 2022.

Inclusion and Diversity at Curtin

We are committed to ensuring that Curtin has an inclusive environment, free from harassment, in which all students, staff and the community feel respected, valued and welcome. We encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people with disability, women, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and are committed to making reasonable adjustments to enable people with disability to participate fully in our recruitment, selection and appointment processes.

For more information and application form please visit:

https://staff.curtin.edu.au/job-vacancies/?ja-job=458471

Congratulations to former ISSDP President Professor Alison Ritter on election to the 2021 Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia – a wonderful and well deserved achievement.

More information: https://socialsciences.org.au/academy-fellow/?sId=0032u00000HpeAgAAJ

Satellite ISSDP conference at the Lisbon Addictions Meeting, Tuesday November 22. More details and call for abstracts coming in late November. Lisbon Addictions Conference Wed – Friday November 23-25.  ISSDP is co-producing the thematic track on Current and Future Challenges in Global Drug Policy.  Abstracts for this are currently open here:   Call for abstracts | Lisbon Addictions 2022

It 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

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.

‘How COVID has changed cannabis markets, use and policy’

Chair: Rosalie Liccardo Pacula.

Speakers: David Hammond, Judith Albridge and Bernd Werse.

Date:  June 17, 2021
Time: 17.00-19.00 SAST | 15.00-17.00 GMT | 16.00-18.00 BST/UK time

You will not be able to join the webinar without pre-registering.

Registration link:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_05_OvzfqQNaJMqnKMxx-Ig

The March 31st ISSDP Research Webinar was recorded and is available to our ISSDP members via the link below.

https://www.issdp.org/webinar-presentations/

ISSDP is launching a new ISSDP research webinar series that will run throughout 2021. Join us for the first webinar on 31 March to hear from Laura Atuesta from CIDE Mexico on “Organized crime-related disappearances in Mexico: Evidence from Durango, Tamaulipas and Coahuila.”

For details of this and future webinars see:
https://www.issdp.org/webinars/

On October 28th, Harm Reduction International will be launching a new report that draws on positive impacts of COVID on opioid substitution therapies from multiple countries. Be on the look out!

https://www.hri.global/

 

Key Findings from a Global Drug Survey survey that ran for 7 weeks from May – June 2020 are now available: 

https://www.globaldrugsurvey.com/gds-covid-19-special-edition-key-findings-report/

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

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.

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

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)

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

Dear colleagues,

As you might be aware, several countries are implementing different measures to mitigate the transmission of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Such measures have included the cancellation or the postponement of international travels and events/meetings involving a large number of participants.

Even though in Mexico (update March 11th, 10 AM CST), there are only eight confirmed cases and none of these cases are in or near Aguascalientes, we have decided to postpone the event until further notice. We will communicate the new dates once we have a clearer picture of the evolution of the virus globally. This means that we will respect all payments made so far and we will extend early-bird registration once we have a new date.

We sincerely apologize for all the inconvenience this situation may carry. We will certainly try our best to solve any questions or concerns you may have with respect to the change of dates. If you need support contacting your hotel to change the reservation, you can send your reservation information to ISSDP2020@cide.edu and we will help you with the request.

Our solidarity with everyone affected by this situation.

Best regards,

The ISSDP Organizing Committee.