News and Notes

The Jellinek Memorial Award for 2004 has been awarded to Robert Adron Harris for his pre-eminent research in delineating the molecular interaction of ethanol with GABA receptors. Dr Harris, who is based at the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at the University of Texas at Austin, received his award at this year's RSA meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia. We send Dr Harris our warm congratulations. The directors of the Jellinek Memorial Fund have announced details of the 2005 award. The chair of the selection committee is Dr Salme Ahlström and the specific category is ‘Social, Cultural and Policy Studies’. Nominations for the award can be forwarded to Dr Ahlström at Alcohol and Drug Research, Lintulahdenkuja 4, PO Box 220, FIN-00531, Helsinki, Finland. The closing date is 15 November 2004. The value of the award is 5000 Canadian dollars, and the winner is presented with a bust of the late E. M. Jellinek. Congratulations are due to Hamid Ghodse, Professor of Psychiatry and International Drug Policy at London University and head of the International Centre for Drug Policy at St George's Hospital Medical School, who has been elected president of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) for its 80th session. Professor Ghodse, a long-time friend of this journal, has been a member of INCB since 1992 and has also served as its president in the years 1993, 1994, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2001. The Board also elected Madan Mohan Bhatnagar (India) as First Vice-President, Robert Lousberg (Netherlands) as Second Vice-President and chairman of the standing committee on estimates, and Alfredo Pemjean (Chile) as Rapporteur. The officers serve in their individual expert capacity and are elected for a one-year term. The concept of setting up a new university department in ‘addictology’ in the Czech Republic first emerged around 1999 or 2000. It came about in connection with work on a big interdisciplinary textbook about drugs and drug addicts. The preparation of this textbook was probably the crucial point of change. More than 40 colleagues worked on it and the book, published in two parts, is the first original textbook in our history based strictly on the multidisciplinary approach to the study of addiction. ‘Adiktologie’ (the Czech name for this new discipline) is close in meaning to the English word ‘dependence’. We define ‘adiktologie’ as the interdisciplinary approach to drugs and drug users and have adopted the word into the scientific terminology. Our new discipline embraces alcohol and tobacco, and includes ‘non-substance’ addictions such as gambling, problems with PCs, etc. The first step in setting up a new academic department was to find a suitable host university. After prolonged discussions the project group found good support for this idea in the First Medical Faculty of Charles University in Prague. The members of this Faculty support the interdisciplinary approach and our concept was probably very close to their ideas. The new trend is to combine the single discipline approach with a problem-oriented one. The main problem on the road from plan to reality has been the conservative view of those academics who support the single discipline approach: for them the multidisciplinary idea appears strange and unacceptable. We have also come up against the influence of political interests as we seek to develop and define the borders of our new subject. There have been challenges to the evidence-based foundations on which we are trying to build. This is the crucial task for our team. In the Czech Republic we have had repeated experiences with political interference in our national drug policy, with destructive results. At the present time we are in the assessment phase of our application for accreditation by the Education Ministry. If all goes well, the process will be completed by the spring of 2005. Dr Miovsky can be contacted at miovsky@cmail.cz Since 1978, the German Society for Addiction Research and Therapy (DG-SUCHT) has organized a scientific meeting every two years. In the beginning, the intention was to bring together the then small number of experts from German speaking countries and strengthen the connection between the latest international research and debate and clinical practice in Germany. Topics from that time were ‘Addiction and Socialisation’, ‘Women and Addiction’, ‘Relapse and Relapse Prevention’. Ten years later, when the meeting was held in Konstanz, no more than 20 contributions were presented, and only half of them were based on data. Nowadays, the number and the variety of contributions is similar to that presented in congresses by any other medical and psychological society. At this year's meeting in Essen, over 100 contributions were presented, including more than 40 posters. Topics of the symposia were, among others, ADHS and addiction, prevention of substance abuse in young people, screening and brief interventions in primary care, the NMDA receptor and alcohol dependence, cannabis and comorbid psychological disorders, craving and cue reactivity, activity of the stress hormone system and addiction. The quality of the contributions in these symposia and in the main lectures no longer appears to lag behind those at meetings in the USA or Great Britain. For the first time, the society has donated a research prize. From among a number of applicants, PD Dr Stefan Bleich from the University of Erlangen was chosen to receive the prize, for his work on the role of homocystein and brain damage in alcoholism. The improvement in the quality of the contributions is a direct consequence of the increased funding of addiction research in Germany over the past 15 years. Currently there are four regional research networks active, selected for funding on the basis of proposals judged by international experts. Each network is comprised of five to 10 research projects devoted to various topics of addiction treatment and basic research and a substantial part of the contributions to the congress came from these projects. Considering the variety of topics addressed and the generally high quality of the research on which the contributions were based, the lack of invited speakers from other countries in the program was notable. German researchers are interested in co-operating with experts from Great Britain and the Netherlands. All of us, including workers in addiction research and therapy, will have to move from national concerns towards a more European outlook. So in the future we must make more effort to use the bi-annual meeting of the Society for Addiction Research and Therapy as a platform for the exchange of research results and ideas with our neighbouring countries. The Congress, which took place from 31 March to 2 April 2004, was organized by Professors Norbert Scherbaum and Markus Gastpar from the Psychiatric Clinic of the University of Duisburg-Essen, with the help of Doris Kaldewei. As they shouldered the workload without the help of a professional congress organisation, the congress fee could be maintained at an admirably low level—a tradition which hopefully will be continued by the colleagues in charge of the next congress of the Society, which will take place at Regensburg, Bavaria in the year 2006. The Exchange on Drug Demand Reduction Actions (EDDRA) is an online database that provides information to policy makers and practitioners on drug demand reduction actions across Europe and promotes the role of evaluation. The database currently contains in excess of five hundred entries and is growing. EDDRA is a first port of call for those planning and implementing drug demand reduction projects; or analysing their outcomes. It receives regular mandatory reports from each of the 16 ‘national focal points’ co-ordinated by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. The database has a multilingual facility, making it possible to navigate the system in 11 EU languages. For monthly reports on updates to EDDRA, or to register a new project, please contact Abigail David, the project manager, at Abigail.David@emcdda.eu.int Ethnicity and Addiction. 16th International Congress on Addiction. 8–10 September 2004, Vienna, Austria. Contact: Martina Gaisberger, Medical University Vienna, Department of psychiatry, Waehringer Guertel 18–20, A-1090 Vienna, Austria. Tel. + 43 1585 6969; Fax: + 43 1585 696969; E-mail: info@ethnicity-addiction.com; website: http://www.ethnicity-addiction.com 12th World Congress on Biomedical Alcohol Research. ISBRA 2004. 29 September – 2 October 2004. Mannheim/Heidelberg, Germany. Contact: AKM Congress Service GmbH, Haupstrasse 18, D-79576 Weil am Rhein, Germany. Tel. +49 (0)7621 98330; Fax: +49 (0)7621 78714. E-mail: akmweil@akmcongress.com; website: http://www.isbra2004.de Visions for the Future: empowerment, integration, interaction. 47th international conference of International Council on Alcohol and Addiction (ICAA). 31 October–5 November 2004, Venice, Italy. Contact: Conference Secretariat, Tel./Fax: +43 263033230. E-mail: icaa.Venice@gmx.at 6th EUROPAD European Conference. 1–3 November 2004, Le Meridien Montparnasse, Paris, France. Organised by Euorpean Opiate Addiction Treatment Association in collaboration with Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems. Contact: Icro Maremmani, President, c/o AU-CNS, Via XX Settembre 83, 55045 Pietrasanta, Italy. Fax: +39,058472081; E-mail: maremman@psico.med.unipi.it; website: http://www.europad.org/conf2004.asp Alcohol Concern Annual Conference. 2 November 2004 Glaziers Hall, London Bridge, London, SE1 9 DD. Featuring the progress of the UK government's Alcohol Harm Reduction Strategy. Contact: Alcohol Concern, Waterbridge House, 32–36 Loman Street, London SE1 OEE. Tel. +44 (0) 20 7928 7377. website: http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk Scientific Advances in Substance Abuse: patients, populations and policy. 28th annual AMERSA National Conference. Hilton Embassy Row, Washington, DC. 11–13 November 2004. Contact: AMERSA, 125 Whipple Street, 3rd floor, suite 300, Providence, RI 02908, USA. Tel. + 1401 3490000. E-mail: Isabel@amersa.org. website: http://www.amersa.org Australian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs (APSAD) conference. Fremantle, Western Australia, 14–17 November 2004. Contact: http://www.apsad.org.au Treatment of Addiction: Examining Legitimacy, Competence and Effectiveness in Primary and Secondary Care. Annual Symposium of the Society for the Study of Addiction. 18–19 November 2004, Royal York Hotel, York. Contact: Christine Weatherill, Tel. +44 113 295 1333; Fax: +44 113 295 1320; E-mail: training@lau.org.uk Cannabis and Mental Health. International conference at the Institute of Psychiatry, London. 2–4 December 2004. Of interest to clinicians in mental health and drug and alcohol fields, researchers, voluntary organisations. Contact: Zerrin Atakan, z.atakan@virgin.net 5th International Congress on Peer Review and Biomedical Publication. 15–17 September 2005, Fairmount Hotel, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Call for abstracts: by 15 January 2005. Contact: Annette Flanagin, JAMA, 515 N State Street, Chicago, IL 60610 USA. Tel. +1312 4642432; Fax: +1312 4645824; website: http://www.jama-peer@jama-archives.org OR Jane Smith, BMJ Publishing Group, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JR. Tel. +44 (0) 20 7383 6009; Fax: +44 (0) 20 7383 6418; E-mail: jsmith@bmj.com News and Notes welcomes contributions from its readers. Send your material to Susan Savva, News and Notes Editor, Addiction, National Addiction Centre PO48, 4 Windsor Walk, London SE5 8AF. Fax: +44 (0) 20 7703 5787; E-mail: s.savva@iop.kcl.ac.uk Subject to editorial review, we will be glad to print, free of charge, details of your conference or event, up to 75 words and one entry only. Please send your notification three months ahead of time and specify in which issue you would like it to appear

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