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Dr Adrian Carter’s Neuorethics research nominated for National Award

The University of Queensland’s Dr Adrian Carter’s “Researching Addiction Neuroethics” project has won the Excellence in Research category at the 2010 National Drug and Alcohol Awards.

The other two Finalists in this Category are the Groote Eylandt Substance Use and Mental Health Project, and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre’s Drug Trends Project.

Addiction neuroethics addresses the central question: Do addicted persons have the capacity to make autonomous decisions regarding their substance use? Answering this question will have profound implications for treatment and rehabilitation programs as well as broader concerns, such as how to best minimise harm and help substance-using people.

By highlighting the neurobiological changes that focus attention on drug taking and make it more difficult not to use drugs, the hope is that a neuroscience-based understanding of addiction will lead to more humane and effective treatment of those with an addiction.

Dr Carter’s work in the University’s Centre for Clinical Research has highlighted the importance of placing treatment of substance-using people into a human rights framework, rather than using coercive models. Substance use is a social as well as a neurobiological issue and merely treating it as a “medical” problem with a purely medical treatment, is considered to promote re-lapse.

The doctoral dissertation by Dr Carter has been hailed as a seminal contribution to the field, and has been accepted for publication as a book to the wider health sector.

This work has led to Dr Carter to be invited as an advisor to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the use of coercion in the treatment of addiction.

His research has been used to develop the WHO guidelines on the ethical treatment of opioid dependent individuals, and the WHO and UNODC guidelines on the coerced treatment of addicted individuals.

The Winner was announced at the National Drug and Alcohol Awards Dinner on Friday 25 June 2010 at the Citigate King George Square Hotel in Brisbane.

Media Enquiries: Brian Flanagan, NDAA Event Manager – Phone: 0400 860 058 (m)

25 June 2010

 

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