Drug Strategies

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Drug Strategies is a non-profit research institute located in Washington, D.C. [1] Drug Strategies works to identify and promote more effective approaches to substance abuse and to increase public understanding of current research on what works and what does not.

Drug Strategies is led by former Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs Mathea Falco. Falco, a leading expert in drug abuse prevention and treatment, comments frequently on drug policy in the media. She is the author of The Making of A Drug Free America: Programs That Work. [2] The Drug Strategies Board of Directors is chaired by Harvard Law Professor and former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Philip Heymann. Current Board members include Marian Wright Edelman, President of the Children's Defense Fund; James R. Jones, former U.S Ambassador to Mexico; Michael Kantor, former Secretary of Commerce; Dr. David Aaron Kessler, former FDA Commissioner; Mark A.R. Kleiman, Chairman of BOTEC Analysis Corporation; and Thomas Schelling, Nobel laureate in Economics, along with other notable figures in the fields of international drug policy and public health. David Kessler's best selling book, The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite, refers to the work of Drug Strategies. [3]

Drug Strategies has produced numerous publications, including Making the Grade: A Guide to School Drug Prevention Programs and Treating Teens: A Guide To Adolescent Drug Programs. [4] [5] [6] [7] The Treating Teens publication features an online companion guide designed to help parents, teachers, judges, counselors and other concerned adults make better choices about teen substance abuse treatment. [8] The guide's Programs section contains extensive information about teen substance abuse treatment programs nationwide. Drug Strategies also offers the online resource Teen Substance Use for reliable information related to teen substance use prevention, education, treatment, and recovery.

Drug Strategies created the Nancy Dickerson Whitehead Awards in 1999 and presented them annually for ten years to print and broadcast journalists who reported with excellence on drug issues. [9] [10] A distinguished Awards Committee provided overall guidance. Members included Dickerson Whitehead's friends and colleagues: Marie Brenner, Vanity Fair; Joan Ganz Cooney, Children's Television Workshop; Walter Cronkite, Cronkite/Ward & Company; John Dickerson, journalist; Bill Moyers, Public Affairs TV; Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal ; Diane Sawyer, ABC-TV; Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes; Mark Whitaker, Newsweek ; and Katharine Graham, The Washington Post (until her death in 2001).

Bubblemonkey.com created by Drug Strategies, provides adolescents anonymous access to information on substance abuse and treatment centers. The interactive website is also available in Spanish (changobomba.com), and offers self-assessment tests, Q&A with experts, and location-specific information on substance abuse programs.

Drug Strategies and the Harvard Law School's International Center for Criminal Justice co-hosted two working groups on transnational organized crime in April and October 2011, which were attended by policy experts from the United States, Colombia, and Spain, including a number of Mexican officials at the federal, state, and local levels. [11]

Drug Strategies, in collaboration with Schell Games, created Tunnel Tail, a free mobile phone app launched in 2012. Developed for the BEST Foundation, the app targeted adolescents 11–13 years old, when youth begin experimenting with alcohol, tobacco, and drugs. A paper detailing a preliminary study of Tunnel Tail's effects was presented at the 2014 Games for Health Europe conference and published in the conference proceedings. [12]

In 2015, Drug Strategies and Harvard Law School's International Center for Criminal Justice co-hosted a two-day seminar sponsored by the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study addressing lessons from the United States' 40-year war on drugs. [13] A multidisciplinary panel of experts explored innovative approaches to drug policy and programs and covered topics ranging from domestic law enforcement to adolescent drug prevention programs.

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Substance abuse prevention, also known as drug abuse prevention, is a process that attempts to prevent the onset of substance use or limit the development of problems associated with using psychoactive substances. Prevention efforts may focus on the individual or their surroundings. A concept that is known as "environmental prevention" focuses on changing community conditions or policies so that the availability of substances is reduced as well as the demand. Individual Substance Abuse Prevention, also known as drug abuse prevention involves numerous different sessions depending on the individual to help cease or reduce the use of substances. The time period to help a specific individual can vary based upon many aspects of an individual. The type of Prevention efforts should be based upon the individual's necessities which can also vary. Substance use prevention efforts typically focus on minors and young adults – especially between 12–35 years of age. Substances typically targeted by preventive efforts include alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, inhalants, coke, methamphetamine, steroids, club drugs, and opioids. Community advocacy against substance use is imperative due to the significant increase in opioid overdoses in the United States alone. It has been estimated that about one hundred and thirty individuals continue to lose their lives daily due to opioid overdoses alone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mathea Falco</span>

Kathleen Mathea Falco is a leading expert in drug abuse prevention and treatment who served as the first U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs during the Carter Administration. Currently, Falco is the President of Drug Strategies, a nonprofit research institute based in Washington, D.C., which she created with the support of major foundations in 1993 to identify and promote more effective approaches to substance abuse and international drug policy.

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John R. Knight is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the Associate Director for Medical Education at the HMS Division on Addictions. In 1999, he founded the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research (CeASAR) and its companion outpatient clinic, the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program (ASAP). CeASAR and ASAP were the first programs of their kind to be located at a children’s hospital. He is best known as the clinical scientist who developed and validated the CRAFFT substance abuse screen for adolescents. In 2008 he was named the inaugural incumbent of the Boston Children’s Hospital Endowed Chair in Developmental Medicine

Newark Renaissance House, Inc. (NRH) is tax-exempt, fully licensed, not-for-profit specialized therapeutic agency funded by the New Jersey Department of Human Services, Division of Addiction Services. NRH caters to adolescents, pregnant women and families whose lives are affected by substance abuse. NRH was founded in 1975 as a state-approved, privately-funded, residential drug treatment community in Newark, New Jersey. In the years since its founding, NRH has added capacity and services, expanding its facilities and its offerings to include residential substance abuse treatment for adolescent boys, for pregnant women, and for mothers with small children, drug abuse prevention training for at-risk children and teenagers, day treatment for adolescent girls and boys, and outpatient care for individuals and families. Although it remains in the same geographic location as it always has been, NRH has grown over the years from one to three operational buildings.

The primary treatment program at NRH is residential treatment for adolescent boys dealing with alcohol and/or drug abuse and co-occurring mental, emotional, and/or environmental issues, disorders, or conditions. NRH also specializes in treating addictive behaviors in pregnant women and in women with pre-school-aged children. The populations it serves are considered by experts to be among the most vulnerable in the community, and among those whose substance abuse activity is growing most rapidly. NRH emphasizes family treatment within a context of real world community environs. It employs a community therapeutic approach to treating the disease of addiction and other related conduct.
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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Falco (surname)</span> Surname list

Falco or Falcó is the surname of:

References

  1. ↑ "Drug Strategies". drugstrategies.com. Retrieved May 13, 2015.
  2. ↑ Mathea Falco (1992). The Making of A Drug Free America: Programs That Work . Times Books.
  3. ↑ Kessler, David A. (September 14, 2010). The end of overeating: taking ... – David A. Kessler – Google Books. ISBN   9781605295053 . Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  4. ↑ "Health: Get Help – The Daily Beast". Newsweek. January 19, 2003. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  5. ↑ Maria Godoy. "Treating Substance Abuse in Teens". NPR. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  6. ↑ "Finding Best Teen Drug-Treatment Programs – ABC News". Abcnews.go.com. January 6, 2006. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  7. ↑ HBO. "Addiction: Treatment: Drug Treatment for Adolescents". HBO. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  8. ↑ "Treating Teens". April 13, 2014. Retrieved May 18, 2015.
  9. ↑ "TheSunLink.com". Web.kitsapsun.com. November 14, 2003. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  10. ↑ "McClatchy Newspapers Honored for Journalistic Excellence for Coverage Of Drug Issues". .prnewswire.com. November 15, 2001. Archived from the original on May 3, 2012. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  11. ↑ "HLS conference focuses on Mexican drug cartels". Law.harvard.edu. May 6, 2011. Retrieved November 10, 2011.
  12. ↑ Falco, Mathea; Schell, Jesse; Witan, Deidre (October 29, 2014). "Tunnel Tail: A New Approach to Prevention". Tunnel Tail: A New Approach to Prevention. Games for Health 2014. Springer. pp. 27–36. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-07141-7_5. ISBN   978-3-658-07140-0.
  13. ↑ "A different kind of drug research: Heymann, Falco on lessons learned from the U.S. 'war on drugs'". Allison Franklin. Retrieved March 1, 2015.
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