Susan Bennett
Susan was a member of the Audit Commission Team which produced the 'Reducing the Impact of Drug Misuse' report in 2004 and was responsible for developing user and carer involvement in this piece of work. As a result, recommendations were made to ensure that the experience and energy of users and carers are used effectively to improve services. The full report is available from the Audit Commission website.

In addition, up to date information was produced on the current position of User Involvement nationally as well as compilations of notable practice, summaries of what users and carers think of drug services and helpful information for everyone on how to get started on user involvement. Susan has additional experience of working with users and carers in the North West and in Essex where she helped to set up several county wide groups and enabled them to access key decision making processes within local government and health, and in Liverpool where she pioneered involving users and carers as key communicators to the statutory services.

Susan is currently employed as a Consultant with LCS Ltd, a company which specialises in working with local authorities and their partners to make a difference in the services users and carers experience.

Dr Peter Cohen
Dr Peter Cohen has been researching drug use, drug policy and drug use epidemiology at the University of Amsterdam, as director of the first Amsterdam Drug Research Programme, and since 1996 as director of CEDRO, the Centre for Drug Research.

Dr Peter Cohen first entered the field of drug research in 1980 by way of a course in sociology on the 'history of social problems.' In his view, human construction of cultures and societies can be partly understood by studying what a society defines as a problem and why. Since then he has studied the so-called drug problem as one of the many 'social constructions' of western culture, based on complex prejudice and ideology. His main interest is to conduct empirical research on typical drug myths such as those relating to addiction to cocaine or to cannabis as a stepping stone to more 'dangerous' drugs. Large-scale epidemiological drug use research in the city of Amsterdam and later in the Netherlands as a whole has been conducted. Dr Cohen is currently Director of the Centre for Drug Research at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, doing research funded mostly by the Dutch Ministry of Health.

Matt has worked as a researcher in the drugs field, and is currently employed as the Contracts Manager with Southend DAT.

Bob Dunkley
Bob Dunkley is a community pharmacist from Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. He qualified in 1973 and since then has seen the drug scene take off - not only in his own area in West Yorkshire, but in Ukraine where he went with a Rotary Convoy in 2001. Bob is also a librarian. He believes that accurate information from all over the world will enhance the services that are provided because practitioners are often isolated and need to keep up to date. Bob has an interest in Subutex because it is such a good drug, and many of his patients report how clear headed it leaves them compared to methadone. Bob is looking at a protocol to crush the tablets before administration,
so as to deter diversion.

Dr Emily Finch
Dr Emily Finch is a consultant psychiatrist in substance use and has been working full time in the field for the last 13 years. She is head of the NTA clinical team and is taking forward the NTA's programme on dual diagnosis.

She is the consultant leading the North Southwark drug and alcohol service. She was involved in the Croydon DTTO pilot scheme and later worked in the Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham DTTO team.

Emily is a lecturer and tutor on the MSc in clinical and public health aspects of addiction and has substantial teaching experience. She has a research degree in methadone maintenance and has research interest in injectable prescribing, coercive treatment and dual diagnosis. She is deputy clinical director of the South London and Maudsley Addictions Division.

Daren Garratt
Daren Garratt is Development Manager for The Alliance and a Director of UKHRA. From 2001 to 2004 he was DAT Coordinator for Walsall and also had some responsibility for commissioning adult treatment services. During this period Walsall earned a deserved reputation for developing and delivering innovative and effective user-led harm reduction initiatives that Daren remains proud to be associated with. Daren is a happy hedonist who enjoys degenerate rockabilly, his gorgeous wife and wonderful children, and the occasional comedy exploits of West Bromwich Albion Football Club.

Combining the practice of independent scholarship with activism in the field of drug policy reform, Chris works closely with the Alliance and is a regular contributor to the Release website. He is presently working on a book about the 'War on Drugs.'

Karen McElrath
Karen McElrath is a Reader in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, Queen's University, Belfast. Recent research projects include comparisons of drug use lifestyles among in- and out-of-treatment IDUs, the impact of community stigma and risk taking among IDUs, sexual behaviours and the use of MDMA, and drug use and political conflict. She is co-editor of The American Drug Scene (with James Inciardi, Roxbury, 4th edition) and editor of HIV and AIDS: A World View (Greenwood Press). She is involved with local harm reduction efforts in N. Ireland and serves on the advisory boards of several drug projects in the region.

Alan Rosenbach
Alan Rosenbach has worked extensively in the substance misuse sector. He has been Head of West Sussex Drug & Alcohol Action Team since 1999. The team of commissioners is based in the Local Authority (West Sussex) Social & Caring Services Department.

By background he has a degree in Social Psychology and a Masters in Business Study.

Simon Shepherd
Simon Shepherd is Chief Executive of the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals - the professional body for people working in the drugs and alcohol field. He has worked in the field for the last seven years - he was previously Chief Executive of the European Association for the Treatment of Addiction, and for three years served on the Home Office's Correctional Services Accreditation Panel as co-chair of the sub-panel on drug treatment programmes.

Professor Gerry Stimson
Professor Gerry Stimson was appointed Executive Director of the International Harm Reduction Association in July 2004. He has been a longstanding supporter of IHRA and has been programme director for the International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm for the past five years. He is a public health sociologist committed to working to reduce harms from drug and alcohol use; improving public health through social and health policy; and working internationally to promote harm reduction.

From 1990 to earlier this year he was Director of the Centre for Research on Drugs and Health Behaviour, which is one of the leading groups conducting research on reducing harm from drug and alcohol use. He has nearly 40 years' experience of research on drug and alcohol issues. He has advised the UK government, the World Health Organization, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime on issues related to drugs, HIV infection and AIDS. He contributed to the development and evaluation of the UK response to HIV/AIDS. He remains an honorary Professor at Imperial College London. He is an editor of the International Journal of Drug Policy - IHRA's official journal.

Peter Wheelhouse
Peter Wheelhouse is Head of the Criminal Justice Interventions Programme (CJIP) in the Drugs Strategy Directorate of the Home Office. CJIP is a critical part of the Government's strategy for tackling drugs in general and reducing drug-related crime in particular. It is a 3-year £447m programme to develop and integrate measures for directing drug-misusing offenders out of crime and into treatment. The intention is for these processes to become the normal way of working with drug-misusing offenders across England and Wales.

Peter is not a drugs specialist but has long experience in law enforcement and criminal justice roles. He spent his early career as an operational officer dealing with immigration issues at home and overseas before moving to policy and performance management work. Peter has worked widely on with the police service and other criminal justice partners, including the creation of the Metropolitan Police Authority. Prior to his current post, he was Head of Police Information and Communications Technology in the Home Office, was a Board member of the Police Information Technology Organisation, and worked closely with the Criminal Justice IT Programme.

Dr David Young
Dr David Young is Clinical Director of the Drug and Alcohol Directorate for East and Central Cheshire for the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership Trust. He trained at Guy's Hospital, London and qualified in 1974. From 1977 to 1978 he worked as Medical Officer at Parammatta Psychiatric Centre in Sydney, Australia, where he first encountered working with people with drug problems. On his return to England he started in General Practice in Macclesfield in January 1979 and worked as a full-time principal until April 2001 when he joined the Cheshire and Wirral Partnership Trust - initially as Lead Clinician for East Cheshire Community Drug Team and then as Clinical Director. In 1985 he chaired the local drug advisory committee in Macclesfield which was responsible for setting up the Barnabas Drug Problem Centre in Macclesfield. In January 2003 he was appointed by the Royal College of General Practitioners as Regional Primary Care Lead for the North West of England - this post he job shares with Dr Janikiewicz.