Rethinking Addiction and Abstinence

Historically, the war on drugs has had one mission – fully eliminate drug use. However, not all people who use drugs are interested or prepared to quit, or they may be unsuccessful in their attempts to quit. Since the 1980s and 1990s HIV/AIDS activism, the practice of “harm reduction” aims to reduce risk for those who continue to use drugs. Harm reduction is an approach that meets people “where they are” to promote health and reduce the risks associated with drug use and other risky behaviors. For instance, medication-assisted treatment, syringe services programs, and supervised injection sites are strategies to reduce the risk of overdose and disease among people who inject drugs intravenously. Harm reduction also expands beyond solely health-related harms and aims to mitigate potential social, economic, and legal harms. In this webinar, Dr. Nicholas Felicione, assistant professor in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior, will discuss the principles of harm reduction, his research in tobacco harm reduction, and how this way of thinking is improving quality of life for people who use drugs.

About Nicholas Felicione
Nicholas J. Felicione, PhD, is an addictions and tobacco regulatory scientist focusing his research on the interaction of tobacco use behaviors and tobacco product characteristics and their effect on outcomes, such as health and addiction. His research employs various methods including laboratory studies, clinical trials, naturalistic observation and secondary analyses of population datasets. Felicione started his research and teaching career while completing his MS and PhD in psychology, with an emphasis in behavioral neuroscience, at West Virginia University. He continued his training with post-doctoral and research scientist positions in the Department of Health Behavior at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, N.Y., before joining the faculty in the Department of Community Health and Health Behavior at UB.