The Next Wave: Applying Lessons Learned from Opioids and PolyDrug Critical Incidents in Addressing Emerging Drug Threats

By participating in this webinar, participants will be able to discuss the breadth, diversity, and array of substance and substance combinations as well as the latest trends in novel psychoactive substances contributing to our current substance abuse pandemic.  Audience members will recognize that while the timing of future abuse / overdose surges cannot be predicted with accuracy due to novel polydrug combinations, evolving ingestion routes, and ever-changing user demographics related to particular surges, lessons from past substance-related surges and outbreaks provide probative and informative lessons from which responses can be fashioned.  Participants will be able to implement strategies for drug landscape monitoring, testing approaches, and harm reduction based on contemporary drug intelligence.  Attendees will be able to mitigate harms occurring in emerging drug outbreaks and will gain insights to assist in factual communication and information dissemination at the federal, state, regional and local level regarding the emergent crises’ scope, nature, and impacts.