Doctors for Drug Policy Reform Presents:
Support. Don't Punish. Global Day of Action: A Health-Focused Approach to Drug Use and Misuse
In support of the advocacy group Support. Don’t Punish. Global Day of Action on June 26, 2024, D4DPR hosted two webinars with an international panel of physicians. These webinars emphasize the importance of health-focused and human rights-based approaches to drug policy. Both panels have been combined into one video for easier viewing.
Speakers:
Bryon Adinoff, MD. USA – “A Health-Focused Approach to Drug Use and Misuse and Why Many Healthcare Professionals Oppose It”
Dr. Adinoff is an addiction psychiatrist, neuroscientist, academician, and advocate. He is President of Doctors for Drug Policy Reform, Editor-in-Chief of The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, and was previously the Distinguished Professor of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (retired).
Gideon Lasco, MD, PhD. Philippines – “Medicalizing Drug Use: Contexts and Consequences”
Dr. Lasco is a physician, medical anthropologist, and drug policy scholar whose research includes ethnographies of drug use in the Philippines as well as the politics of drugs and drug wars in Asia. He has written the Asia chapter of the past two Global State of Harm Reduction reports and is a board member of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP).
Alex Wodak, MBBS, FRACP. Australia – “Why the Ferocious Opposition to Tobacco Harm Reduction is the Biggest Issue in Drug Harm Reduction in the World Today’”
Dr. Wodak spent 30 years establishing & running an alcohol & drug treatment service in a teaching hospital in Sydney, Australia, where he became increasingly involved in harm reduction & drug law reform at the national & international level because of concern about the uncontrolled spread of HIV. For the last 8-9 years, Dr. Wodak has advocated for tobacco harm reduction, with which he believes the 8 million global smoking related deaths per year could be rapidly reduced if tobacco control, public health, governments & WHO accepted the abundant and growing evidence that safer nicotine options are much less dangerous than smoking.
Mark Tyndall, MD, ScD, FRCPC. Canada – “Providing a Safe Supply of Drugs on the Continuum of Harm Reduction”
Dr. Tyndall is an infectious diseases and public health physician who has worked as a clinician and researcher in HIV prevention and harm reduction for over 35 years. He has held several medical leadership positions including the Director of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control. Dr. Tyndall has recently stepped back from his academic activities to heal, reflect, and write.
Mary Ashinyo, MBChB, MPH. Ghana – “Sensitizing and Educating Doctors About Drugs”
Dr. Ashinyo is a physician specialist in public health with emphasis on health policy and systems management. She has been a member of West African Drug Policy Network since 2015 and provided public health policy analysis and advocacy towards the decriminalization of drugs for personal use agenda and the annual #SupportDon’tPunish campaigns.
Emmanuel BK Luyirika, MBChB, MPA, MFAM MED. Uganda – “Improving Access to Controlled Medicines in Palliative Care”
Dr. Luyirika is Executive Director of the African Palliative Care Association and a board member of the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance. He has served on several technical committees at the Ministry of Health Uganda, Uganda AIDS Commission, WHO, UNICEF, and UNAIDS and as Vice Chairperson of the Council of the Institute of Hospice and Palliative Care in Africa.
This webinar was supported by a grant from Drug Policy Alliance.
This event was hosted by Doctors for Drug Policy Reform as part of our ongoing commitment to advancing education for medical providers and our communities. Please consider making a contribution to support our efforts.
.svg)