About Addiction Studies Program

For Journalists

1999-2014—NFIA partnered with the Wake Forest University School of Medicine to create the Addiction Studies Program for Journalists. Funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse NIDA), the program brought print, broadcast, and electronic journalists together for 2½-day workshops at which scientists studying drug effects gave slide presentations about the science that underlies addiction.

The workshops were paired with the annual meetings of scientific societies which matched scientist mentors with journalists to shepherd them through the first few days of annual meetings. The goal of the journalists’ program was to help them report drug stories based on science.

For the States

In 2004, the program added two additional partners, the Treatment Research Institute and the National Conference of State Legislatures, to conduct a similar program for the states. Also funded by NIDA, each 2½-day workshop brought together lawmakers and state administrators to inform them about the science that underlies addiction. The goal of this program was to help states write and implement laws based on science.