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Wayne State University’s Dr. Chris-Ellyn Johanson to Influence Drug Abuse Policy

Chris-Ellyn Johanson, PhD, has been elected president of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), a scientific organization that promotes substance abuse research broadly defined. Dr. Johanson is an expert on substance abuse disorders and a professor of psychiatry and behavioral neurosciences at the Wayne State University School of Medicine.

Each year, the CPDD sponsors a national meeting that is considered to be the most important in the field and which attracts over 1000 substance abuse researchers ranging from medicinal chemists to public policy experts. The college also sponsors a national testing program for the evaluation of new compounds for their abuse liability. One major goal of the society is to provide evidence-based strategies to shape health policies related to drug abuse and addiction.

As president of the CPDD, Dr. Johanson is committed to: increasing public awareness of drug dependence as a medical condition; helping policy makers formulate drug policy based on tested scientific evidence; and formulating multidisiciplinary position statements on subjects such as abuse liability assessment in the context of medications development, ethical issues in human substance abuse research, and widening treatment availability.

“To physicians and medical scientists the drug problem is primarily a public health problem. To much of the public, however, the term ‘drug abuse’ merely evokes images of crime. The discrepancy between these two perceptions needs to be addressed through better dissemination of the facts,” Dr. Johanson said. “The College on Problems of Drug Dependence encourages rational policies to regulate drug testing, expand research, and develop more effective treatment and prevention strategies for drugs of abuse.”

With an interest in behavioral pharmacology, Dr. Johanson studies the dependence-related properties of drugs and potential medications to treat substance abuse. She is also interested in advanced imaging techniques to characterize the brain chemistry of drug users and is using functional MRI to see where tobacco cravings occur in the brain. She is currently funded by several National Institutes of Health grants to explore the properties and effects of nicotine, cocaine, and MDMA.

Prior to joining the Wayne State faculty, Dr. Johanson was chief of etiology at the Addiction Research Center at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She also held faculty appointments at the University of Chicago and Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences.

The College on Problems of Drug Dependence was established in 1929 as part of the National Academy of Sciences. It is now an independent organization that serves as a liaison among government, industry, academia, regulatory and research agencies, and facilities for drug abuse education, treatment, and education.

With more than 1,000 students, the Wayne State University School of Medicine is among the nation’s largest medical schools. Together with the WSU Physician Group, a practice organization consisting of the school’s 750 clinical faculty members, the school is a leader in patient care and medical research in a number of areas including cancer, genetics, women and children’s health and the neurosciences.

Editor's Note: Dr. Johanson is a resident of Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.