Speakers:
Bijan Nasiri, MD, UBC Continuing Studies
Perry Kendall, MD, British Columbia Provincial Health Officer
Joseph Frascella, PhD, National Institute on Drug Abuse, USA

As professionals in this field you are committed to building a stronger practice and health care system for your clients. Find out how provincial, national, and international initiatives impact your work. Learn what’s on the horizon and how your contributions to addiction treatment are making a difference.

Facilitator: Launette Rieb, MD, MSc, FCFP, dip. ABAM

Caring for patients in pain who have or are at high risk to develop an addictive disorder can be challenging. This interactive session will help you understand some of the overlap between pain and substance use disorders and red flags to look for. Participants will be invited to reflect on the basis of their own reaction to these patients. Skill will be developed to assist in the clinical differentiation between physiologic dependence, substance dependence, and pseudo addiction. Overarching management strategies will be discussed.

Panelists:
Mark Haden, MSW
Donna Dryer, MD, FRCPC
Kenneth Tupper, PhD
Richard Yensen, PhD

A psychedelic renaissance is happening in the field of medicine. Psychedelic drugs were considered a promising form of psychiatric treatment in the 1950s and early 1960s, when medical researchers around the world conducted legitimate scientific research on them. However, due to fears about youth using these substances in unsupervised settings, psychedelics were made illegal and demonized during the 1970s, '80s and '90s, and all human research on these substances was banned. Recently the prohibition on scientific inquiry has been lifted in many countries, including Canada, and as a result there is a resurgence of interest in these powerful change agents. New research corroborates earlier findings, and shows that there is a wide range of healing possibilities for psychedelics as medicines. The Amazonian brew ayahuasca and ibogaine (based on a West African psychedelic plant) are being explored to treat addictions. MDMA, or ecstasy, is being investigated as a treatment for psychological trauma, psilocybin (found in "magic mushrooms" for end-of-life anxiety in terminal cancer patients, and LSD for cluster headaches. This event will bring together some of the leaders in the reinvigorated and rapidly evolving field of psychedelic medicine.

Facilitator: Dan Reist, MTh, Assistant Director, Centre for Addictions Research of BC (CARBC)

This interactive session focuses on the key implications of a health promotion approach to substance use and addiction. Identify strategies for working with individuals with problems related to substance use or addiction and gain strategies for promoting healthy communities that minimize harm from substance use or addiction.

Facilitator: Tim Stockwell, PhD

Explore the details and rationale of Canada's first national drinking guidelines in this interactive session. Gain an understanding of alternative criteria for the establishment of such guidelines, in particular, a consideration of the pros and cons of relative versus absolute risk as key criteria. You will leave this session with an appreciation of criticisms that the low-risk drinking guidelines are too high, are too low, are not justified for pregnant women, are not justified for underage drinkers - and counterarguments. This interactive session presents an appreciation of the complexity of converting the large and diverse field of alcohol epidemiology into simple population-wide guidelines.

Facilitators:
Liz Kay, MSW, RSW
Colleen Allison, PhD
Arvinder Grewal, MA, CCC

This three-hour workshop offers you the opportunity to:

• gain insight into your personal biases and assumptions of youth who have concurrent disorders
• understand the complex nature of addressing concurrent disorders in youth
• learn skills essential to working with youth with concurrent disorders.

Facilitator: Ronald Joe, MD

This presentation provides an introduction to the judicious use of medications as part of an overall comprehensive approach to the treatment of addiction. Dr. Joe will focus on methadone and Suboxone for the treatment of opioid dependence. He will present the evidence, pharmacology, limitations, and risks of medications from both the perspective of the prescriber and allied health staff.

After the presentation, you will break out into small groups to work on a case study and common medication issue. As a group and with guidance from the facilitator, you will have the opportunity to develop a solution that provides the best possible outcome for the client.

Facilitator: Scott Harrison, RN, MA, CCHNC, Program Director, HIV/AIDS and Urban Health, Providence Health Care

Explore the concepts of socio-political construction of identities that 'trouble' communities. 'The Addict' becomes a concept that we can easily differentiate from the 'other' and associate with a multitude of social issues including crime, drug dealing, sex work, and social dysfunction. The 'Addict' thereby becomes a lightning rod for individual and community anger, disgust, and distrust. Providing culturally safe and relational care is central in the successful treatment of addictions and is clearly highly problematized by the stigma associated with being 'the addict.'

The session:

• introduces the concepts of identify and difference, how and why these work and what the impacts are
• unpacks safely our understanding of an 'addict'
• explores how our own heritage, cultures and beliefs come into play in the human caring
• discuss the concepts of relational practice and cultural competence
• practically demonstrate positive and negative examples of patient engagement
• incorporate peers in recovery to share the experience of being 'othered'

Chaired by: Jane Buxton, MBBS, MHSc, FRCPC

Harm reduction aims to keep people safe and minimize death, disease and injury from high risk behaviour. It involves a range of support services and strategies to enhance the knowledge, skills, resources, and supports for individuals, families and communities to be safer and healthier.

The Harm Reduction team from the BC Centre for Disease Control will provide participants with an understanding of harm reduction principles and an overview of the BC Harm Reduction Program. Participants will be introduced to the provincial Overdose Prevention and Response Program, which includes the newly developed take-home-naloxone initiative for people who use opioids. The benefits of engaging peers in program development, policy and evaluation and developing an interdisciplinary team (the Drug Overdose and Alert Partnership) to respond to concerns such as overdose and other harms related to drug use will be addressed. The session will be interactive with break-out activities, videos, and perspectives from community members.