Symposium on e-cigarettes for Auckland

Symposium on e-cigarettes for Auckland

A visiting expert on the effects of stimulant drugs will be the key speaker at a symposium on e-cigarettes next month.

The symposium, “E-cigarettes: Opportunity or threat?” is hosted by the University of Auckland’s Centre of Addiction Research and held at the University’s Business School at the City Campus.

Professor Wayne Hall is an expert in ‘neuroethics’ and over the past 20 years has led research in addiction, mental health and public health.

He is the Director of the Centre for Youth Substance Abuse Research at the University of Queensland and has advised the World Health Organisation on the health effects of cannabis use; the effectiveness of drug substitution treatment; the scientific quality of the Swiss heroin trials; the contribution of illicit drug use to the global burden of disease; and the ethical implications of genetic and neuroscience.

The E-cigarette one-day symposium on Thursday 12 March is expected to be the first New Zealand gathering for stakeholders interested in e-cigarettes.

“The meeting will provide a forum for sharing up to date evidence from local and international research on e-cigarettes,” says Professor Chris Bullen, Co-director of the Tobacco Control Research Tūranga, based at the University of Auckland. “Consumers (vapers), regulators, and policy makers, leading Māori health thinkers, legal experts, tobacco control advocates and healthcare providers will all bring their perspective.”

While in New Zealand, Professor Hall will give a range of talks at the University of Auckland. These include a public lecture on the impact of stimulant drugs on the brain and a seminar at the University’s Centre for Brain Research on ‘Ethical and practical issues in using genetic tests and neuroimaging to predict addiction risk and match addicted persons to treatments’.

‘Electronic Cigarettes: Opportunity or threat?’: A symposium hosted by The Centre of Addiction Research and the NZ Tobacco Control Research Tūranga.
On Thursday 12 March, 2015, from 8:30am to 4:30pm at the University of Auckland, Owen G. Glenn Business School , Room 310.

ENDS

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