Executive Program Committee
Below are the members of the 2008 Global Conference On Methamphetamine Executive Program Committee. Further information on individual members is available by clicking the relevant Read bio.
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Luciano Colonna, Chair Director of International Development, The Thorne Group, Salt Lake City, US
Luciano Colonna has been working in public health and public policy for fifteen years. He is currently the Director of International Development for Weave Consultants, Ltd. Mr. Colonna is also a consultant on stimulants for the Open Society Institute's International Harm Reduction Development Program.
Mr. Colonna has a reputation as an individual capable of working productively with disparate groups and unlikely allies. His past contributions include the implementation of the 1st and 2nd US National Conferences on Methamphetamine; designing and directing SAFEGAMES 2002, a public health intervention implemented during the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games; and working as the Executive Director of the US NGO, the Harm Reduction Project.
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Apinun Aramrattana, MD, PhD Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Apinun Aramrattana is a medical epidemiologist and a leading drug use researcher in Thailand. He is Assistant Professor of Family Medicine and Deputy Director of the Research Institute of Health Sciences at Chiang Mai University, one of the premier research organizations in Southeast Asia. He is the Thailand Principal Investigator on a number of NIH-supported HIV prevention trials for injection drug users and methamphetamine using youth, and he is directing a study for the HIV Prevention Trials Network on buprenorphine/naloxone substitution maintenance therapy vs. buprenorphine/naloxone detoxification as an HIV prevention strategy.
Dr. Apinun has been one of the principal researchers who organized the first national household surveys of drug use in Thailand supported by the Office of Narcotics Control Board (ONCB). He is now a chairman of a consortium of substance abuse researchers in Thailand. The consortium is working closely with ONCB on developing proper drug surveillance systems at provincial and national levels. He facilitated the development of Yaba profile monitoring system now operated for the whole nation.
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Philip Fuity Consultant, Albuquerque, US
Philip Fuity specializes in the designing of interventions targeting injections drug users, commercial sex workers and other marginalized populations in urban, rural and frontier communities. He helped develop and administer one of the only state-wide harm reduction programs in the United States for the New Mexico Department of Health (NMDOH).
While with NMDOH, he co-created the first accredited harm reduction, public and officer safety course for state law enforcement entities, and provided overdose first response and CPR certification for New Mexico State Police officers in Northern New Mexico.
Phillip also developed successful cross-program policy and legislative initiatives, maintained progressive public relations for the program, and received several awards and recommendations, including the National Association of Social Workers NM Public Citizen of the Year, 2004.
He is currently involved with initiatives that incorporate traditional medicines and practices into substance abuse treatment strategies.
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Carl Hart, PhD Professor, Neuroscience Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University, NY, US
Dr. Hart is an Associate Professor of Psychology in both the Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology at Columbia University, and Director of the Residential Studies and Methamphetamine Research Laboratories at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. A major focus of Dr. Hart's research is to understand behavioral, physiological, and subjective effects of psychoactive drugs in experienced users. He is the author or co-author of dozens of peer-reviewed scientific articles in the area of substance abuse, co-author of the textbook, Drugs, Society, and Human Behavior, and a member of a National Institutes of Health (USA) review group. Dr. Hart was recently elected to Fellow status by the American Psychological Association Division 28) for his outstanding contribution to the field of psychology specifically psychopharmacology and substance abuse.
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Prof. Evgeny Krupitsky, MD, PhDChief, Department of Addiction at St. Petersburg Bekhterev Research Psychoneurological Institute, St. Petersburg, Russia
Prof. Evgeny Krupitsky, MD, PhD, is a Chief of the Department of Addictions at St. Petersburg Bekhterev Research Psychoneurological Institute and a Chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Psychopharmacology of Addictions at St. Petersburg State Pavlov Medical University, Russia. Since 2006 he also holds a position of Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania. He received his MD from the Leningrad Institute of Hygiene and Sanitation in 1983, and then Ph.D. in psychopharmacology from the Leningrad Institute of Experimental Medicine in 1988. Later in 1998 he also received a special advanced degree of a Doctor of Medical Sciences in Addiction Psychiatry in 1998 from St. Petersburg Bekhterev Research Psychoneurological Institute.
Dr. Krupitsky had been working as a visiting exchange professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University in 1996-97. Dr. Krupitsky received several national and international awards including European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Fellowship Award (1997), Heffter Research Institute Award for Outstanding Research in Hallucinogens (Heffter Research Institute, Santa Fe, NM, 2000), and Award of the Government of Russian Federation for Outstanding Research in Medicine (2005).
Dr. Krupitsky is member of the Research Society of Alcoholism (USA), International Society for Biomedical Research in Alcoholism, American Society Addiction Medicine, European College for the Studies of Consciousness, Russian Association of Addiction Psychiatrists, and others. He published many papers in the Russian and international psychiatric journals and he is also an author of several chapters in the international manuals and two books on the treatment of alcoholism and addictions.
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Lin Lu, MD, PhD Director of National Institute of Drugs and Development, Beijing, China
Dr Lin Lu is Director of China's National Institute on Drug Dependence (NIDD), and a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at Peking University. Before taking the position at NIDD, China, he worked at NIDA/IRP, NIH in the United States, focusing on the area of the neurobiology of cocaine withdrawal and relapse.
NIDD is China's premiere national organization focusing on addiction, from basic science to clinical treatment. Its departments include neuroscience, epidemiology, medication development, clinical pharmacology and an addiction treatment center.
In 2005, Dr Lu organized NIDD's Methadone Maintenance Treatment program (MMT), Since 2006, Dr. Lu has researched harm reduction efforts in China.
Professor Lu has worked in the addiction field for 19 years. In that time he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers ranging from molecular to behavioral issues of addiction. As a clinical physician, he also published more than 50 papers on treatment and medication development for addiction and depression.
Dr. Lu was trained as a clinical doctor and received his PhD after working as a physician in the field of mental health and addiction. His development of an internet-based psychotherapy and suicide-management program for patients with mental health and addiction problems won him recognition as an expert in addiction treatment in China. During Dr. Lu's five years at NIDA/NIH, he published more than 20 papers in international peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Neurosciences, Trends in Neurosciences, Journal of Neuroscience, Biological Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology, and Psychopharmacology.
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Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, MSWDirector, Open Society's Institute's Global Drug Policy Program, Warsaw, Poland
Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch is the Director of the new Global Drug Policy Program at the Open Society Institute (OSI), a new policy effort based in Warsaw. The program extends the concepts of harm reduction to include harms related to the international war on drugs and encourages a shift away from the use of criminal sanctions to discourage drug use, increased access to effective drug treatment, greater scrutiny of the effectiveness of current drug interdiction efforts, and interpretation of the UN treaties in a manner consistent with a this broader harm reduction approach.
Kasia was the Director of the International Harm Reduction Development program (IHRD) at OSI from 1999-2007, where she led IHRD in pioneering technical and financial support for more than 200 harm reduction projects across 23 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. IHRD's focus on policy advocacy around issues critical to the health and human rights of drug users, including the reform of repressive drug policies that inadvertently fuel the spread of HIV, the availability of substitution treatment, and the expansion of harm reduction services has helped her develop the skills and expertise required to direct the new initiative.
In addition to her work with IHRD, Kasia served as a member of the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and was a Vice Chair of the board of the International Council of AIDS Service Organizations (ICASO). She serves on the World Health Organization's (WHO) Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS. She has been a member of the UN Millennium Project's Task Force on HIV/AIDS, TB, Malaria, and Access to Essential Medicines, as well as the UN Reference Group on HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Among Injecting Drug Users.
Before joining the Open Society Institute, Kasia worked with UNDP's HIV and Development Program in both New York City and her native Poland. She co-authored Poland's first National AIDS Program and designed training courses for nurses, physicians, social workers, teachers, local policy makers, prison personnel and psychologists.
Kasia received her Masters of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania in 1992 and is now a doctoral candidate at Columbia University's School of Public Health.
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David C. Marsh, MD Physician Leader, Addiction Medicine, Vancouver Costal Health and Providence Health Care, Vancouver, Canada
David Marsh has been the Physician Leader, Addiction Medicine with Vancouver Coastal Health and Providence Health Care since 2004. In this role he is also Medical Director for Addiction Services, HIV/AIDS Services and Aboriginal Health for Vancouver Community. Dr. Marsh is Clinical Associate Professor in the Departments of Health Care and Epidemiology and Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine at the University of British Columbia. In 2004 Dr. Marsh received the Nyswander-Dole Award from the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence in recognition of his contribution to this field.
Dr. Marsh graduated in Medicine from Memorial University of Newfoundland in 1992, following prior training in neuroscience and pharmacology. Prior to moving to Vancouver, David held leadership roles at the Addiction Research Foundation and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto for eight years. Dr. Marsh's research interests include the integration of pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy in the treatment of substance use disorders and focus primarily on novel interventions for opioid dependence. He is presently involved in several research projects including the North American Opiate Medication Initiative (NAOMI) trial of prescription heroin funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and an evaluation of the Supervised Injection Site in Vancouver.
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Amy Mifflin, MBA Manager, Corporate Social Responsibility, Marathon Oil Corporation, Houston, US
Amy Mifflin is a member the Corporate Social Responsibility Department at Marathon Oil Corporation. In her current role as Manager, Community Programs, she manages social performance strategies for the entire business enterprise focusing on stakeholder engagement opportunities, including but not limited to community development, capacity building, environmental stewardship, human rights, and education and training. In this capacity, Corporate Social Responsibility means Marathon is accountable to legitimate stakeholders for its actions on a basis of respect, cooperation, stewardship and sustainable investment.
Mifflin joined Marathon in 2002 as Diversity Manager, working in the Corporate Development & Diversity department and was instrumental in developing training for all levels of the workforce – globally, developing and managing Diversity Councils domestically and internationally, communications and marketing campaigns for the Diversity Organization, and workplace effectiveness studies including development of action plans and measuring success within those organizations over time. Mifflin has more than 13 years of experience in Diversity Management over her 18 year career.
Ms. Mifflin obtained a Bachelors of Science in Marketing and earned a second major in Management in 1990, from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. She obtained an MBA with concentration in Organizational Leadership in 2000, from Butler University, Indianapolis, Indiana.
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John Morgan, MD Physician and Professor of Pharmacology at the City University of New York Medical School, NY, US
John P. Morgan, M.D. 1940-2008
In Memoriam
Dr. John P. Morgan passed away three days after agreeing to serve as a member of the Global Conference on Methamphetamine's Executive Planning Committee. Dr. Morgan was the first individual invited to sit as a member of the Committee.
Dr. John P. Morgan was a physician and professor of pharmacology at the City University of New York Medical School. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati College of medicine in 1965. Following training in internal medicine (at Syracuse) and clinical pharmacology (at John Hopkins University and the University of Rochester), he began a career in academic pharmacology and medicine at the University of Rochester. He began his position at City College in 1977, where his teaching included the topics of pharmacology, clinical pharmacology and drug policy.
Dr. Morgan published approximately 100 articles, book chapters and books, largely focused on the clinical pharmacology of psychoactive drugs. His research and writing involved issues such as urine testing in the American workplace, medical marijuana, the socio-pharmacology of crack-cocaine, alcohol prevalence during national prohibition, and physician prescribing practices.
Dr. Morgan was a member of numerous professional associations, including the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and the American Council on Science and Health, and he served on the advisory board of the Drug Policy Alliance.
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Caitlin Padgett, Coordinator and Founder of Youth R.I.S.E., Canada/International
Caitlin Padgett is a founder and coordinator of Youth R.I.S.E. (Resources. Information. Support. Education) an International Network for Reducing Drug-Related Harm, which operates on the principles of including young people in the policies, programs and research that affect their lives. Caitlin has been involved in health promotion and youth policy work for over 10 years. As a peer volunteer and then project coordinator with Youth CO AIDS Society, Canada's only youth-driven HIV/AIDS prevention and support agency, Caitlin became increasingly committed to the principles of young engagement. Caitlin became Canada's first Youth Advocate Mentor, an advocacy position that reported directly to Vancouver Mayor and City Council on the needs of children and youth in the city and included initiatives on homelessness, police relations and human rights monitoring. She co-founded and coordinated Crystal Clear, a youth-led health promotion project for young street-involved methamphetamine users in Vancouver.
Since 2006, Caitlin has been involved in including youth and peers in the International Conferences on Drug-Related Harm, and was a co-recipient of the National Rollston Award, for her work with the conference's Drug User Advisory Group (DUAG), which formed in May 2005 in order to take an active role in the conference planning process. She has been involved in several national and international committees, such as the Youth Advisory to the Public Health Agency of Canada and is the Co-Chair and participant in several sub-committees for the International AIDS conference in Mexico City 2008.
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Andreas Plüddemann, MA Senior Scientist, Alcohol & Drug Abuse Research Unit Medical, Cape Town, South Africa
Andreas Plüddemann is a Senior Scientist in the South African Medical Research Council's Alcohol and Drug Abuse Research Unit. He holds a MA degree in Psychology from the University of Stellenbosch and is currently working towards a PhD in the Department of Psychiatry & Mental Health of the University of Cape Town. His Phd study investigates methamphetamine use among adolescents in Cape Town and its association with mental health problems and sexual risk behaviour. He also co-ordinates the South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use, a drug trends monitoring system operational throughout South Africa. He has also studied the extent, nature and consequences of heroin use in Cape Town, and conducted a review of injecting drug use and harm reduction efforts in six African countries. Currently his primary research interests are in substance abuse epidemiology in South Africa and issues related to the use of methamphetamine by adolescents.
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David Roach, MA Researcher, School of Population Health, University of Auckland, New Zealand
David Roach is a graduate of the University of Otago (Dunedin, New Zealand),and is currently conducting research within the Social Epidemiology Unit of the School of Population Health at the University of Auckland. He has studied amphetamine substitution and policy in New Zealand, with a special emphasis on the use of piperazine compounds. David has also conducted research on HIV among MSM/IDU methamphetamine users.
His current research interests include methamphetamine ('P') use and prescription of pseudoephedrine-containing drugs in New Zealand, and Maori health.
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Steve Rossell, FRSA Chief Executive Officer, Cranstoun Drug Services, London, Great Britain
Steve is Chief Executive of Cranstoun Drug Services (www.cranstoun.org), a leading UK provider of residential and community-based treatment, rehabilitation and access services for those affected by drug and alcohol use.
Steve has worked within the voluntary sector and substance misuse field since 1988. His previous experience includes:- the provision of high care residential treatment and rehabilitation; client service delivery in 'street agencies', needle exchanges and community outreach settings; drug work within the criminal justice system, in both the UK and Europe; and, the development and management of community-based drug and alcohol services.
Steve was a Commissioner on the RSA sponsored ‘Drugs Commission’, an independent body exploring policy and practice related to the impact of illegal drugs and community responses. He is currently a Trustee and Honorary Treasurer of the European Association for the Treatment of Addiction (EATA), a Trustee of Podane Ruce UK, and, a Trustee of COCA.
Steve is a graduate of Brunel University, post-graduate of Kingston University Business School and Alumni of the Leadership Trust. Steve is also a Member of the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organizations, a Member of the Institute of Directors (MIoD), and, a Fellow of the RSA (FRSA).
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Michael Siever, PhD Director, The Stonewall Project, San Francisco, US
Michael D. Siever, PhD., is a licensed psychologist whose specialty is addictive behaviors. He is the founder and Director of the Stonewall Project, which provides services to gay and bisexual men who use methamphetamine.
The Stonewall Project has two components: 1) a harm reduction treatment program providing integrated substance use, mental health, and HIV counseling and education; and 2) a harm reduction outreach and education program best known by its web site, www.tweaker.org that also includes real time outreach and education in the community. He also was one of the founders of Magnet, a community space and sexual health center for gay men. Both Stonewall and Magnet are programs of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
Dr. Siever was a founding member of and, for three years, the Community Co-Chair of the Substance Abuse Treatment on Demand Planning Council for the City and County of San Francisco and has been active in several other advisory groups and task forces for the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He was a member of the Continuum of Services System Re-engineering Task Force for the California State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.
Dr. Siever received his B.A. in Social Relations from Harvard University and both his M.Ed. in Special Education and his PhD. in Counseling Psychology from the University of Washington in Seattle. He was a NIAAA-funded Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington under G. Alan Marlatt, PhD., and Research and Clinical Associate in the AIDS Risk Reduction Project in the School of Social Work at the University of Washington. Dr. Siever also has a long history of community activism dating back several decades.
He was a member of Survive AIDS (formerly known as ACT-UP Golden Gate). In addition to his activism as a gay man living with HIV, he is an advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities and other marginalized and oppressed communities particularly with the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He was a founding member of Queer Nation/Seattle and served on the Steering Committees of Seattle Committee Against Thirteen, the Washington Coalition for Sexual Minority Rights, and the Union of Sexual Minorities. His activism started in the civil rights and anti-war struggles in the 1960's and 1970's.
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Pavlo Smyrnov, MPHDeputy Executive Director, International HIV/AIDS Alliance, Kiev, Ukraine
Pavlo Smyrnov is Deputy Executive Director at International HIV/AIDS Alliance in Ukraine. He manages the country's program for HIV/AIDS prevention implemented by 105 regional organizations and supported by Global Fund and USAID. The major focus of the program is intravenous drug users, especially young, female and stimulant users. Mr. Smyrnov is a member of cross-sector working group under the Ministry of Health on the scale-up of substitution treatment in Ukraine, and a member of UNAIDS HIV Prevention Reference Group. Mr. Smyrnov received his Masters degree in Public Health from Boston University in 2002.
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Mayor Sam SullivanMayor, City of Vancouver, Canada
Since accepting the Olympic Flag at the closing ceremony of the 2006 Olympic Winter Games, Sam Sullivan has become one of the world's most recognized mayors.
Mayor Sullivan is a recipient of the nation's highest honour, the Order of Canada, for his community service on behalf of marginalized people. He is the founder of six non-profit organizations that have improved the lives of thousands of North Americans with disabilities.
After being elected to Vancouver City Council in 1993, Sullivan served as a Councillor for 12 years. He was elected Mayor in November 2005.
Among the initiatives he has introduced is EcoDensity, an innovative policy to reduce the City's impact on the environment, reduce housing prices and improve the vitality of neighbourhoods through high quality densification. The Mayor has also introduced Project Civil City (PDF, 1.7Mb), a broad initiative aimed at improving public order and civility on Vancouver streets which includes four key goals to significantly reduce homelessness and incidences of crime and public disorder in the City by 2010.
A believer in life-long learning, Mayor Sullivan has devoted himself to studying a broad range of topics. He obtained a Business Administration degree from Simon Fraser University and has also taught himself the basics of several languages including Cantonese.
He is an avid sailor using a specially designed boat he helped to create, and also enjoys hiking in the Coast and Rocky Mountains using an assistive device he co-invented.
Mayor Sullivan's achievements are noteworthy due to the fact that they were accomplished since he became a quadriplegic after breaking his neck in a skiing accident at the age of 19.
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Nicholas Thomson, MPH, PhDField Director, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Nick has been based with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health collaborative research projects with Chiang Mai University, Thailand, for the last 7 years working on a variety of research concerning drug use and HIV in South East Asia. The majority of the research explores the implications for individual and public health of the rise and rise of recreational methamphetamine use among young people in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. The research has trialled peer based harm reduction responses for methamphetamine users. In addition, Nick has been the lead technical consultant for Family Health International exploring HIV risk environments associated with the Thai prison system and also with UNICEF in Laos to conduct research into the feasibility of community based responses to methamphetamine use that aim to keep young people out of detention/rehabilitation centers. He is currently Johns Hopkins' Field Director on a new methamphetamine research project that is exploring the role that community mobilisation may play in reducing HIV transmission and methamphetamine use in rural Northern Thailand.
Nick is currently the Technical Director for AusAID on a regional project in Thailand, Laos and Cambodia that is seeking to improve the research capacity around issues of methamphetamine use. The project brings together key stakeholders from public security and public health to discuss the issue of methamphetamine research and response specifically in the context of incarceration of methamphetamine users, drug treatment, HIV/STI prevention and treatment. He is also a consultant to OSI on a project investigating issues of drug treatment for methamphetamine users in South East Asia and the implications for human rights and HIV prevention.
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Alex Wodak, MD Director, Alcohol and Drug Services Vincent's Hospital, Sydney, Australia
Dr Alex Wodak is a physician and has been Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St. Vincent's Hospital in Sydney, Australia since 1982. He has a major interest in prevention of HIV among injecting drug users, treatment of drug users, health aspects of prisons and drug policy reform. Dr. Wodak is President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and was President of the International Harm Reduction Association from1996 to 2004). He helped establish the first needle syringe programme and the first medically supervised injecting centre in Australia (when both were pre-legal) and often works in developing countries on HIV control among injecting drug users.
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Dr Gady Zabicky, MDAdvisor, Centro Nacional para la Prevención y Control del VIH/SIDA (CENSIDA), Mexico City, Mexico
A practicing psychiatrist, Dr. Zabicky is an advisor to CENSIDA (Centro Nacional para la Prevención y Control del VIH/SIDA [National Center for the Prevention and Control of HIVAIDS]. Dr. Zabicky is a founding member of the Mexican Society for the Studies on Addictions.
Before stepping into the arena of mental health, Dr. Zabicky worked as a physician in the Mexican State of Chiapas during the Zapatista revolt of the 1990s,In 2001 and 2002, Dr. Zabicky worked in the Rockefeller Laboratory of the Biology of Addictive Diseases in New York City with methadone clinics and genetic correlates of addictive diseases studies.
Dr. Zabicky is founder of the Program for "Dual Diagnosis" patients in the National Institute of Psychiatry "Ramón de la Fuente." He is former Head Professor in the U.N.A.M.s' program for psychiatrists in managing addictive disorders.
Dr Zabicky still works with patients and their families in a private consortium for medical specialists in which he served as its first president (EMEPP).
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Tomas Zabransky, MD, PhD Research and Development Manager Centre for Addictology, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
Tomas Zabransky graduated from Medical Faculty, Palacky University Olomouc (M.D.) in 1993. Ph.D. in epidemiology, hygiene and preventive medicine (2001). In 2003-4 he was a Hubert H. Humphrey / NIDA Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA. Recently, he serves as the Research and Development Manager of the Center for Addictology at the Psychiatric Clinic, 1st Medical Faculty, Charles University, Prague and he works as International Drug Epidemiology Expert for different EU and UN bodies. Tomas is author of two books and numerous papers on drugs and drug epidemiology, and member of several Czech and international professional associations.
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