Keynote Speaker: Neil McKeganey
Held on Saturday 21 August 2010
The University of Western Australia
A day of presentations and workshops on the worldwide problem of drug addiction by experts in the field.
Speakers:
- Professor Neil McKeganey, Director, Centre for Drug Misuse Research, University of Glasgow
In his presentation Professor McKeganey spoke about the need to rediscover the components of successful recovery from dependent drug use. Click here to view Professor McKeganey's talk. - Professor Jon Currie, Director of Addiction Medicine, St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne. Click here to view Professor Currie's talk.
- Professor Gary Hulse, Director of Research and Education in Alcohol and Drugs, UWA. Click here to view Gary Hulse's talk.
- Dr George O'Neil, Director of Medicine and Research, Fresh Start Recovery Programme
- Dr Stuart Reece, General Practitioner. Click here to view Dr Reece's talk.
Speakers
Neil McKeganey is a sociologist by training and has undertaken research into areas as diverse as drug abuse treatment, drug injectors and HIV, drugs and prostitution, drugs and crime, the impact of parental drug use on children, drug policy and drug prevalence.
In 1994 Professor McKeganey founded the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at the University of Glasgow, which has grown into one of the leading research groups working in the substance use field in the UK.
Professor McKeganey is a frequent commentator in the media on drug related matters. In 2008 he was invited to the White House to discuss his research particularly around young people's drug use.
Professor McKeganey is the author of over 150 academic papers and six books including Beating the Dragon: the recovery from dependent drug use (Prentice Hall). He has written about the development of harm reduction in drug policy and practice and later this year will publish his latest book, Controversies in Drugs Policy and Practice (Palgrave).
Click on the play button below to view part 1 of Neil McKeganey's talk (15 minutes)
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Click on the play button below to view part 2 of Neil McKeganey's talk (15 minutes)
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Jon Currie is a neurologist and an addiction medicine specialist. He is Director of Addiction Medicine and Translational Neurobiology at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne and holds an honorary professorship at Melbourne University. Professor Currie has a longstanding interest in the neurobiology of addiction, the acute and chronic effects of addictive substances on brain function, and he has particular expertise in the rapid translation of basic brain science and neurobiology into novel and effective medical treatments for a wide range of drug and addiction problems. He has run clinical trials on various treatments for addiction including a treatment for dependence on prescription sedatives.
Professor Currie has sat on a number of advisory committees related to the field of addictive substances including three major committees within the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
In reviewing the drug policy of the AFL's illicit drugs policy, Professor Currie was quoted as saying "drug problems are health problems; they're not criminal problems, they're not moral problems".
Click on the play button below to view part 1 of Jon Currie's talk (14 minutes)
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Click on the play button below to view part 2 of Jon Currie's talk (13 minutes)
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Click on the play button below to view part 3 of Jon Currie's talk (14 minutes)
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Gary Hulse has worked in the area of addiction since 1987, initially in clinical services. Since 1992, he has held an academic appointment as Coordinator of Alcohol and Drug Education and Training within the Faculty of Medicine at The University of Western Australia. Professor Hulse's research is directed at developing evidence based information which will enhance clinical practice.
Over the past few years he has made several invited presentations at International Research Meetings, including the USA National Institute of Drug Abuse International Forum on Building International Research on Drug Abuse, US College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) Scientific Meeting and The International Stapleford Conference on Addiction Management.
Professor Hulse has authored a large number of academic papers, including a randomised clinical trial of an implant treatment for drug addiction (published in 2009), and contributed to several books. He is Chief Editor of two evidence based clinical texts in the field of addictive substances published by Oxford University Press which have been adopted as the standard text for medical training by the Australian Medical Schools Committee of Deans.
Click on the play button below to view part 1 of Gary Hulse's talk (15 minutes)
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Click on the play button below to view part 2 of Gary Hulse's talk (14 minutes)
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George O'Neil started his medical career as a gynaecologist, working in South Africa, Ireland and Scotland before returning to Western Australia in 1979. After delivering babies to mothers who were addicted to heroin, Dr O'Neil was inspired to make it his life's work to help people become drug-free. He founded Perth Naltrexone Clinic in 1996 in Subiaco, Western Australia, now Fresh Start Recovery Programme.
As well as his position as Director of Medicine and Research at Fresh Start Recovery Programme, Dr O'Neil works as a gynaecologist at a private fertility clinic, runs a medical device company and occasionally lectures at UWA. Dr O'Neil has a strong interest in inventing medical devices and developing novel treatment methods. He has invented several devices used in obstetrics, malnutrition treatment and pain management as well as treatment delivery methods for addiction treatments.
Dr O'Neil has published a number of peer-reviewed journal papers on addiction medicine. He is a foundation Fellow of the Australian Chapter of Addiction Medicine within the Royal Australian College of Physicians.
Click on the play button below to view part 1 of Dr George O'Neil's talk (13 minutes)
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Click on the play button below to view part 2 of Dr George O'Neil's talk (10 minutes)
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Stuart Reece is a GP working in Brisbane with a special interest in the medical treatment of drug addiction. Dr Reece is affiliated with the School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Western Australia. He is a member of the Society for Neurosciences and is a visiting scientist at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research. Dr Reece has provided advice to the Queensland and Australian Governments on drug addiction and its treatment.
Dr Reece's talk focuses on the implications of drug addiction for the issues of life. Topics include gradual or abrupt morbidity resulting from drug taking, physical damage and disease. It covers drugs and cancer, severe damage and multiple malformations to the unborn including genetic toxicity, and its effect to accelerate degenerative changes in most body systems.
Click on the play button below to view part 1 of Dr Stuart Reece's talk (10 minutes)
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Click on the play button below to view part 2 of Dr Stuart Reece's talk (7 minutes)
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Gary Jeffrey is Winthrop Professor (Gastroenterology) at the School of Medicine and Pharmacology Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital Unit of The University of Western Australia. He is the Medical Director of the WA Liver Transplantation Service and has published widely on topics of hepatology, hepatitis and gastroenterology.
Professor Jeffrey is the visiting liver specialist at a shared care hepatitis C clinic run jointly by Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital and Fresh Start Recovery Programme. This clinic is held at Fresh Start's Subiaco premises and treats patients who have contracted hepatitis C in the course of injecting drug use. Professor Jeffrey's 2007 research paper on patients who received treatment at Fresh Start and also received antiviral medical treatment for Hepatitis C found that rates of successful viral eradication were similar to those found in hospital-based clinics treating non-intravenous drug users.
In 2006 Professor Jeffery won WA Inventor of the Year for his invention, “Hepascore: a non-invasive marker of liver fibrosis”.