CPDD 78th Annual Scientific Meeting Program

WORKSHOPS
Sunday, June 12
III.
Emerging technology for human subjects research
Chairs: Jonathan JK Stoltman and Edward Nunes
The College on Problems of Drug Dependence Committee on Human Research presents
a practical workshop that includes human researchers of both junior and senior status
with diverse interests within the substance abuse field. The workshop is positioned to
benefit both junior and senior investigators in the audience by exposure to new
technology. In addition, roughly a third of the time will be a question-and-answer
session with discussion regarding ethical and legal issues facilitated by an expert
senior discussant. The workshop will provide all attendees with different perspectives
and best practices at other universities, thereby enhancing translation from the
workshop to real world implementation. The basic workshop design includes brief
description of new technology, the opportunities they hold, and the challenges we
might face implementing them. Summaries will be provided for popular and novel
technologies for human subject research. The workshop is designed to cover
technology throughout the research stages of reaching IRB approval; recruiting; and
data collection. Specifically, two popular methods of online recruitment and data
collection will be discussed (Amazon Mechanical Turk and Facebook), HIPAA,
technology to deliver interventions, and technology monitoring in ecological
environments. A variety of technology and substance-using populations will be
covered.
IV.
International emergence and abuse of new psychotropic substances
(NPS), their toxicity and the current regulatory response
Chairs: Patrick Beardsley and Jane C. Maxwell
New psychotropic substances (NPS) of abuse continue to emerge and cause harm
worldwide. Commonly associated NPS drug classes have been the synthetic
cannabinoids and cathinones, but newly emerging benzodiazepines, dissociative
anesthetics and opioid and opioid-mimicking drugs have recently added to this
onslaught. Not only is their number and diversity a challenge, but also their
transience, detection and geographical heterogeneity, which provide special issues to
health practitioners and regulatory authorities relative to more established abused
drugs. The fact that their availability and supply are often mediated through the
diffuseness of the Internet compounds the problems of their control. The specific aims
of this workshop are to illuminate the international diversity of the NPS problem, the
harm they cause, and how regulatory authorities are responding to their challenge.
Hopefully, this information will better alert and inform those practitioners confronting
NPS health issues, and enkindle interest in their research by scientists. The workshop
will address forensic challenges associated with NPSs and their toxicology, present an
international canvas of the NPS problem, focusing on the NPS story in Australasia,
Europe and the United States. It will conclude with a summary of the presented topics
and a focus on the international regulatory response in its attempt to control the NPS
problem.