1st global conference on methamphetamine
conference newsletter
issue no. 1 |
| Prague. Czech Republic.
15th - 16th Sept. 2008 | |
 | |  Prague New City Hall
www.globalmethconference.com
The Czech Republic, City of Prague, the Centre for Addictology at Charles University, Network Environmental Systems, Podane Ruce, Cranstoun Drug Services, the Harm Reduction Coalition and The Thorne Group, are honored to cosponsor the 1st Global Conference on Methamphetamine: Science, Strategy and Response. The event is scheduled to take place this September 15 - 16, 2008 at Prague's new City Hall.
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| | | | Â Â The first event of its kind, experts from the fields of science, public health, criminal justice, government, and civil society, will come together in the historic city of Prague to discuss a wide range of topics centering around methamphetamine. While local and national communities are under siege by a perceived methamphetamine epidemic rush to pursue solutions, many facets of the problem remain to be discovered, examined, debated, illuminated and verified.
  It is in this spirit of discovery, discussion, and cooperation that we are convening this summit. As the first event to gather global experts from varied fields, with diverse and even sometimes divergent perspectives, the conference is assured to be an unparalleled event.
  The First Global Conference On Methamphetamine will take place in Prague's City Hall, with speakers and delegates attending from more than 20 nations. Delegates will have access to over fifty panel, breakout, and plenary sessions and the unique opportunity to interact with local, national, and international organizations, providers, scientists, and professionals. Visit the conference website to get more information and register. |
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 Opium in essence is about poverty, where as Yaa Baa is about greed. ~ Jean-Luc Lemahiey (UNDOC) |
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Major & Concurrent Sessions
Abuse and Dependence and the Onset of Schizophrenia - Super Labs and Cartels - Spreading Like Wildfire: 'Tik' Use in the Western Cape of South Africa - Social Marketing - Trade Awareness of Illicit Sourceing of Chemicals Required for Production - Law Enforcement: Through the Barriers - Use Among Opiate Abusers in Iran - Personal Values and Meaning in Use Among HIV Positive MSM - Voter Approved Treatment Through the Criminal Justice System - Methamphetamine Use in China - Biopyschosocial Aspects of Use Meth Lab - Contamination Assessment - The Future of Global Drug Policy - Novel Interventions for Reducing Risk - Meth Lab Eradication Through Effective Control of Pseudo/ephedrine - Use and Property Offending and Drug Dealing in New Zealand - High Risk Behavior and Avoidance Based Coping Among HIV+ MSM Sexuality and Mental Health Concerns - The Matrix Model for the Treatment of Dependence - Use Among Black MSM - Marketing Education to the Club World - Quite a Lot of Smoke But Very Limited Fire - The Use of Methamphetamine in the European Union - History of Methamphetamine in the US - Hypogonadism and Use Among HIV Positive Men - Therapeutic Communities in Czech Republic - Use In Central & Eastern Europe: How Recent Social History Shaped Current Drug Consumption Patterns - Youth and Ya Ba Use in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand - Use Among Youth in Inner City Winnipeg - Methamphetamine,Meth Labs, and Drug Endangered Children - Use Among Queer Street Involved Youth In Vancouver - Use During Pregnancy: Where Did the Current Surge in Treatment Admissions Come From? - Working with Users in an Urban Setting - Unveiling the Needs of Women Who Use In Indonesia - Providing Integrative Services to Users: The Ukrainian Experience - Use Among Patients of Buprenorphine Maintenance Programs - Injection and HIV Risk in Ukraine - Amphetamines in "Free" Serbia - Pharmacological Treatment of Meth Addiction - Exploring the Efficacy of Matrix in Tehran - The Czech Republic: EU Pervitin Deviance or Laboratory of EU Drug Future? - Safety First: Prevention Education - Use and Networks of Drug Injectors in St. Petersburg - Drug Choice and HIV Risk Among IDUs in St. Petersburg - Brief Motivational Interventions - Exploring Intimacy, Sexuality, and Identity - "Aquà Empieza la Patria" ("Here the Homeland Begins") - Patterns of Use - Relationship Between Use, Other Drugs, and Sexual Effects - Dependence and HIV Risk - Behavior Hepatitis A, B, and C Virus Infection Among Users in Treatment - Use Among Treatment Seeking Youth: An Emerging Problem? - Russian Narcologoical Treatment Crisis - Meth Free Alliance's Neighborhood Intervention Project - Social Cognition, Executive Function & Use - Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About - Ibogaine - Regional Updates- The Relationship Between Use & Violence - Consumption & Expenditure: A Cultural Analysis - Dramatic Increase in Treatment Admissions in Cape Town, South Africa - Methamphetamine, Justice and Public Health - Crime and Punishiment
(More to be announced) | | |
 A knowedge of the formulas and chemicals used to produce methamphetamine is essential to the effort to minimize harm. |
    Featured Speakers                                                                         Â
  Keynote Speaker: Louisa Degenhardt, PhD
  National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of Â
  NSW, Sydney
  "The Global Methamphetamine Picture"
  Special Guest Speaker: Ivan Langer
  Minister of The Interior, Czech Republic
  "Welcome"
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  Speical Sessions: Jeremy Douglas
  Manager, Global SMART Program
  Matthew Nice, Research Expert
  United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Vienna
  "The Global ATS Situation Assessment 2008"
This Week's Highlighted Speakers
Richard Rawson, PhD
UCLA Integrated Substance Abuse Programs, Los Angeles
"On the Treatment of Methamphetamine"
Prof. Lin Lu, MD, PhD
Director, National Institute of Drugs and Development, Beijing
"Methamphetamine Abuse in China"
Apinun Aramrattana, MD, PhD
Faculty of Medicine, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai
"The New Methamphetamine Epidemic in Thailand"
Danica Klempova, MA
Drug Situation Analyst, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon
"Quite a Lot of Smoke But Very Limited Fire - The Use of Methamphetamine in the E.U."
Kat Coric
Artist, President, Arts & Ideas, Montreal
"Crystal - See Through it - Marketing Crystal Meth Education to the Club World"
Stephanie Lovett  Â
Compliance Director, Chemical Compliance International, Birmingham
"Trade Awareness of Illicit Sourcing of Chemicals Required for Methamphetamine Production"
Marsha Rosenbaum, PhD
Director Emerita, Safety First Program, Drug Policy Alliance, San Francisco
"Safety First: Prevention Education For Methamphetamine and Other Drugs"
Michael Siever, PhD
Director, The Stonewall Project, San Francisco
"The Evolution of Party and Play: Counseling Gay Men in San Francisco Who Do Methamphetamine" 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.
Wendee Wechsberg, PhD
Director, Substance Abuse Treatment Evaluations and Intervention, RTI International
"Spreading Like Wildfire: 'Tik' Use in the Western Cape of South Africa"
Tomas Zabransky, MD, PhD,
Research and Development Manager, Centre for Addictology at Charles University, Prague
"Meth in the Czech Republic: EU Pervitin Deviance or Laboratory of EU Drug Future?"
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 An estimated 25 million individuals used amphetamine-type stimulants in 2006. - United Nations World Drug Report |
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Conference Programme
Sunday Evening, September 14, 2008
7:30 -10: 00 p.m. Welcoming Reception
Zlatá Praha Restaurant ~ The Rooftop Terrace
of the InterContinental Hotel Praha
(Main Conference Hotel)
Monday, September 15, 2008
9:00-10:30 a.m. Opening Ceremony
11:00-12:30 p.m. Opening Plenary
12:30-13:30 p.m. Lunch (provided)
13:30-15:00 p.m. Major & Concurrent Sessions
15:30-17:00 p.m. Major & Concurrent Sessions
17:00-18:30 p.m. Major Session
7:30-10:00 p.m. Mayor's Gala Event
Lord Mayor Residence
Hosted by Pavel Bém, Lord Mayor of Prague
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
8:30-10:00 a.m. Major Session
10:30-12:00 p.m. Major & Concurrent Sessions
12:00-13:00 p.m. Lunch (provided)
13:00-14:30 p.m. Major & Concurrent Sessions
15:00-16:30 p.m. Major & Concurrent Sessions
16:45-17:30 p.m. Closing Ceremony
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  As the use of methamphetamine and other amphetamine-type stimulants proliferates across the globe, there is an emerging consensus among experts that stimulant use is a unique and complex problem that presents a significant challenge to existing philosophies and strategies. The 2008 Global Conference on Methamphetamine will provide an arena for the world's foremost scientists, leaders and professionals working on issues of drug use to come together to discuss a wide variety of topics centering around methamphetamine.
  Established trends show methamphetamine use to be widespread in North American, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand; while India, Pakistan, Eastern Europe, the Russian Federation Sub-Saharan Africa and Western Europe represent emerging markets or areas of perceived risk. According to estimates by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime and the World Health Organization more individuals worldwide now use stimulants than opiates and cocaine combined. Yet the development of appropriate and effective responses to stimulants lags. In most cases, treatment and prevention are inappropriately modeled on opiate and alcohol treatment, ignoring both the physical properties of the drug itself, and the fact that methamphetamine use patterns vary widely, and effective responses must be tailored to the unique needs of regions, cultures, and individual users. A lack of infrastructure, of funding, and of experts trained specifically in methamphetamine response compounds the problem.
  As nations struggle to develop appropriate responses to methamphetamine, it is crucial that the most current scientific research, information, and best practices be available to those seeking to implement solutions. The primary goal of the First Global Conference on Methamphetamine is to provide a context for this important work to take place.
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| For details on registration, hotel accommodations and the wonderful City of Prague, please visit the conference website or contact the conference organizer directly at [email protected]
Media and program inquires should be directed to Luciano Colonna, EPC chair, at [email protected] |
| 2008 Global Conference On Methamphetamine
The White House
Sevenoaks, TN13 2QP Great Britain
www.globalmethconference.com |
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