National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Dr. Nora Volkow will be the inaugural speaker for its Jonathan von Breton Memorial Lecture Series at 4 p.m. on April 6 online, SMART Recovery officials announced this week.
“We’re very excited to have Dr. Volkow in this series named after Jonathan von Breton, a tremendous volunteer who was a certified mental health counselor, student of Albert Ellis, and a champion for the growth of SMART’s online community,” said Executive Director Mark Ruth. “Her passion for helping people struggling with addiction is consistent with what Jonathan was all about.”
In her talk, titled, “Advancing Pragmatic Approaches to Addiction Treatment and Recovery,” Volkow is expected to advocate for major changes in treatment and less judgmental and moralistic attitudes about drug use in the face of record numbers of overdose deaths in the United States.
She will build on themes presented in her recent Health Affairs article: “Making Addiction Treatment More Realistic and Pragmatic: The Perfect Should Not Be the Enemy of the Good.”
Volkow has called for society to move beyond the view that abstinence should be the only goal of treatment and instead encourages conversation about the value of harm reduction principles and practices.
In addition, Volkow is expected to acknowledge SMART’s ongoing efforts to destigmatize addiction and strongly support Medication-Assisted Treatment, which SMART has advocated as essential to recovery for many people since the organization began over a quarter-century ago.
Volkow has published more than 800 peer-reviewed articles, written more than 100 book chapters, manuscripts, and articles, co-edited “Neuroscience in the 21st Century,” and edited four books on brain imaging for mental and addictive disorders.
She was named one of “Time” magazine’s “Top 100 People Who Shape Our World”; one of “20 People to Watch” by “Newsweek” magazine; “Washingtonian” magazine’s “100 Most Powerful Women”; “Innovator of the Year” by “U.S. News & World Report”; and one of “34 Leaders Who Are Changing Health Care” by “Fortune” magazine.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse is the world’s largest funder of research on the health issues associated with drug use and addiction, with a proposed 2022 budget of $1.8 billion.
For more information or to register for this event, visit www.smartrecovery.org.
