Division Focus
Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse)
By John Grabowski, PhD, President, Division 28
Dision 28 serves as an interdisciplinary bridge for research,
practice, and social policy. Psychopharmacology/behavioral
pharmacology combines the disciplines of psychology and
pharmacology. The field has a tantalizing prehistory (e.g.,
Freud-cocaine, Pavlov-conditioned opiate responses,
Skinner-cannibinoid altered performance). Members and distinguished
associates of the division represent the origins of systematic
study in the field (Brady, Dews, Cook, Laties, Morse, Thompson,
Schuster, Weiss).
The division's advent can be traced to the development of
controlled innovative laboratory techniques (animal and human) and
clinical trials in the 1950s and 1960s. Psychopharmacologists, as
clinicians and researchers, function in the spectrum of
environments. The goal is understanding the interplay and
interactions of drugs, biology, behavior, and environment.
Development of new medications and evaluating extant drugs
affecting cognition, emotion, motivation, performance, physiology,
and neurobehavioral relations is paramount. As scientists and
clinicians living in a changing society, the membership focuses on
social and therapeutic issues that arise about medications, their
use, and abuse. Treatment of acute psychological disorders, pain
disorders, disturbances of development throughout the life cycle,
and myriad intervening conditions are examined in terms of
pharmacological treatment and neurochemical origins.
The division contributes its expertise to all of the directorates
of APA. The cross-cutting issues of the division are critical to
the Association, multiple disciplines, and society as a whole.
Awards
The awards program for contributions to the field has been
developed over the last decade by Larry Byrd, PhD. Major
achievement awards each year are sponsored by Solvay-Duphar B.V.,
American Cyanimid-Lederle Lab/Wyeth-Ayerst Research, and a bequest
from Robert and Phyllis Levitt.
Publications
The division publishes
Psychopharmacology Newsletter available on
request from the editor,
James Zacny, PhD.
Charles R. Schuster, PhD, is the editor of the new APA Division 28 journal,
Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology.
Ronald Wood, PhD, developed and oversees a Division 28 e-mail network and a
World Wide Web
offering, which summarizes the division's activities.
Research Activities
Members of Division 28 study the full range of behavioral and
cognitive effects of psychoactive/behaviorally active drugs,
clinical efficacy, toxicology, and neurochemical mechanisms, as
well as epidemiological issues, therapeutics, and drug abuse. They
are major contributors to research efforts sponsored by the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute on Alcohol
Abuse and Alcoholism, and National Institute on Mental Health.
Education
Division 28 members are instrumental in APA directorate activities
including prescription privileges and education on psychoactive
medications (Marlyne Kilbey, PhD); preconvention workshops
providing updates on psychopharmacology (Maxine Stitzer, PhD); and
practice guidelines with drug-dependent patients.
Division members provide education on psychopharmacology to
students at all levels and to the public concerning sensitive
issues such as toxins, risks and benefits of therapeutic
medications, and drug dependence. They are staunch supporters of
protection of human and animal subjects in research, while strongly
supporting the need for the full range of research.
Policy
Division members have been involved in refining standards and
developing regulations for toxins controlled by the Environmental
Protection Agency, defining abuse liability of new agents regulated
by the Food and Drug Administration, and examining means for
minimizing the societal consequences of drug dependence.
Current Executive Committee Members
Elected members include Drs. John Grabowski, Steve Fowler, Lewis
Seiden, Alice Young, Deborah Cory-Slechta, Jim Sorenson, Harriet de
Wit. Appointed members include Drs. Suzette Evans, Charles France,
Marilyn Carroll, James Zacny, Nancy Ator, George Bigelow, Donald
Overton, Ronald Wood, Herbert Barry, Dorothy Hatsukami, Christine
Sannerud, Maxine Stitzer, Larry Byrd, Marlyne Kilbey, James Howard,
Jed Rose, Kenneth Perkins, David Penetar, Jack Henningfield,
Carolyn Mazure, Bill Woolverton, and Sharon Hall.
To be an active participant in the executive committee contact:
John Grabowski, PhD, e-mail:
jgrabows.utmsimail@msi66.msi.uth.tmc.edu, (713) 792-7925; or Steve
Fowler, PhD, President Elect: e-mail: fowler@falcon.cc.ukans.edu,
(913) 864-0715.
Membership and Fellows Chairs
Membership information: Jed Rose, PhD, e-mail:
jerose@acpub.duke.edu; Fellow information: Marilyn Carroll, PhD,
e-mail: mcarroll@staff.tc.umn.edu, (612) 626-6289.
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