Music
Canadian indie fave Dan Werb awarded $1.5 million addiction research grant
by Dan MacRae
July 8, 2015
Who needs FACTOR? Just become a well-respected scientist!
Traditionally when a musician acquires millions of dollars to “study addiction,” it’s just code for whatever vice Mötley Crüe had on the go that given weekend. Here’s the exception to that rule.
Dan Werb of Woodhands/Ark Analog fame—aka a longtime favourite of AUX’s—has received a $1.5 million research grant (in U.S. dollars, no less) to study harm-reduction methods and their possible decrease in the likelihood of users injecting. Werb, who works as a highly respected scientist at the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, was one of four recipients of the Avenir Award from the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse. The honour is bestowed upon new scientists working in HIV/AIDS and substance abuse studies.
The dough will be going towards PRIMER (Preventing Injecting by Modifying Existing Responses) which a helpful press release notes “will attempt to control the spread of addiction by harnessing existing public health interventions, such as testing new ways to prevent injection drug use through methadone maintenance therapy and supervised injection sites.”
It’s a five-year study that will include research in Canada, the United States, Mexico and France.
“For too long, the goals of preventing addiction have seemed at odds with efforts to treat this condition,” says Werb on the project. “It is my hope that over the coming years we will demonstrate that treating the harms of addiction is, in fact, not only compatible with prevention aims but is actually an effective way of preventing the spread of addiction across populations.”
[h/t The Province]
