Dr. C. Everett Koop to Lead Discussion of Nation's Most Pressing Substance Abuse Issues: Experts Discuss Treatment/Prevention Issues

1/23/2003

From: Dennis Tartaglia, Hooshna Amaria or Robyn Finker, 212-481-7000 or 732-221-3433(cell) All for M Booth & Associates

News Advisory:

WHAT: A provocative discussion -- with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD and leading scientists, public policy advocates, and treatment professionals - on drug addiction in America and its challenges to science, policy and public health advocacy. National and local leaders from the substance abuse research, prevention and treatment fields, journalists and policy-makers will gather for a roundtable discussion of the most pressing issues facing the field today and innovative solutions to these problems.

The morning will also include the opportunity to meet some of the field's most innovative leaders, including Jack E. Henningfield, PhD, the program's host and newly appointed director of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Innovators Program at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (the roundtable's sponsor). Dr. Henningfield is Adjunct Professor of Behavioral Biology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins. His leading edge research and policy innovations helped lay the foundation for recognition of nicotine as an addictive drug.

8:15 - 9 a.m. Breakfast with Dr. Henningfield and the Innovators.

9 - 10:15 a.m. WELCOME

-- Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD President and CEO, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

-- J. Raymond DePaulo, Jr., MD Director, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Keynote: "Drug Addiction in America: A 21st Century Agenda for Science, Policy and Innovation." -- C. Everett Koop, MD, ScD Former US Surgeon General, Senior Scholar at the C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College

Innovations in the Control of Drug Addiction and Abuse - A Panel Discussion

-- Jack E. Henningfield, PhD, Moderator

Q & A and One-On-One Interviews (a brief Q & A will also follow Dr. Koop's remarks)

10:15-10:30 a.m. Viewing of the American Visionary Art Museum's (Baltimore) exhibit "High on Life: Transcending Addiction" and conversations with artists Ray Materson and Linda St. John, and museum founder and director, Rebecca Hoffberger

WHERE: National Press Club, Murrow Rm., 529 14th St., NW, Washington, DC

WHEN: February 12, 2003

PLEASE RSVP: ROBYN FINKER, (212) 481-7000, ROBYNF@MBOOTH.COM

Panelists: "Drug Addiction in America: A 21st Century Agenda for Science, Policy and Innovation."

-- Joseph V. Brady, PhD Professor of Behavioral Biology, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences & Professor of Neuroscience The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Over his four decades of research, Dr. Brady has led innovations in the understanding of how drugs cause abuse and addiction. He recently pioneered a nationally acclaimed mobile drug treatment unit to bring drug addiction treatment and counseling into underserved areas of Baltimore.

-- Carlo C. DiClemente, PhD Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Dr. DiClemente is cocreator of the Transtheoretical Model of Change, a model that identifies stages of change and other factors that predict treatment outcomes and allows many more people to enter treatment programs at earlier stages of readiness.

-- Sandra Headen, PhD Executive Director, National African American Tobacco Prevention Network

Dr. Headen's trailblazing work in research, community advocacy and health promotion in low income communities of color has provided valuable information on how race, gender and other factors influence teens' motivations to smoke or not to smoke.

-- Ralph Hingson, Sc.D Professor, Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Associate Dean for Research Boston University School of Public Health

Dr. Hingson's landmark research has supported laws that make it illegal for persons under 21 to drive after drinking, lowering the allowable blood alcohol concentration for adult drivers to .08 percent and setting even lower limits for drivers convicted of operating a motor vehicle under the influence. These laws have led to hundreds of lives saved each year.

-- Hendree Jones, PhD Director, Center for Addiction and Pregnancy, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Dr. Jones directs the clinical research program at the Johns Hopkins Center for Addiction and Pregnancy, which is among the nation's foremost programs offering intensive comprehensive intervention with wrap-around services for pregnant women with addictions, leading to improved health of the mother and infant and helping to break cross-generational patterns of addiction.

-- Recipients of the Innovators Combating Substance Abuse award.

Innovators Combating Substance Abuse is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that recognizes and rewards those who have made substantial, innovative contributions of national significance in the field of substance abuse and drug addiction. Each award includes a grant of $300,000, which is used to conduct a project over a period of up to three years that advances the field. The program addresses problems related to alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs through education, advocacy, treatment, and policy research and reform at the national, state, and local levels. Founded in 2000 by the late John Slade, MD at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) School of Public Health, the Innovators national program office relocated to The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in December 2002. Jack E. Henningfield, PhD, a 2000 Innovator awardee and Adjunct Professor of Behavioral Biology in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins, was appointed national program director.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, based in Princeton, N.J., is the nation's largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care. It concentrates its grant making in four goal areas: to assure that all Americans have access to basic health care at reasonable cost; to improve care and support for people with chronic health conditions; to promote healthy communities and lifestyles; and to reduce the personal, social and economic harm caused by substance abuse -- tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drugs.