CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
The Third Bi-national Drug Demand Reduction Conference in Phoenix featured sharing of innovations and
best practices in the area of substance abuse prevention and treatment, training for Mexican officials on
advances in heroin and amphetamine treatment, and expert presentations on ways to better integrate
the public health and public safety systems.
Concurrent pre-conference sessions were held on advances in prevention and treatment, and in initiating
and evaluating public awareness campaigns. Both Mexican and US programs were featured, such as
SAMHSA’s media campaign, Hablemos En Confianza, as well as Mexico’s prevention program, Construye Tu Vida Sin Addiciones. Officials from Baja, California, Mexico and San Diego jointly presented an
innovative school curriculum to prevent drug-related border crime. Treatment professionals discussed
faith-based and social models of recovery, and participants shared best practices in crafting and
evaluating public awareness campaigns and heard from experts in social marketing.
The conference featured several plenary sessions covering a range of topics and was divided into three
tracks: Prevention, Treatment, and Linking Public Health and Public Safety. Plenary sessions included
opening remarks, challenges and opportunities in drug demand reduction, mobilizing parents, youth, and
program evaluation—for prevention, treatment, and public health-public safety programs.
The prevention track featured prevention experts from both Mexico and the US on topics such as family strengthening and community mobilization, while the treatment track consisted of two training sessions—one on opiate treatment, and a shorter training on amphetamine treatment. The track on linking public health and public safety featured presentations on the dually-diagnosed, relapse prevention, recovery, diversion and community corrections, and drug courts.
ORGANIZATION OF THIS BOOK
These Proceedings are organized thematically rather than chronologically. All plenary sessions across the three days are presented first. Then materials are grouped for each track: prevention, treatment, public media campaigns, and public health-public safety. Each grouping contains speech transcripts, papers provided by the speaker, or slides presented at the conference. Those materials are followed by the NIDA pre-conference session overview. The final components are lists of attendees.
