Professor Richard Mattick elected member of the International Narcotics Control Board

June 2015

NDARC’s Professor Richard Mattick has been elected a new member of the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

Professor Mattick was one of three candidates nominated by the World Health Organization, following the resignation of Professor Wayne Hall.

Professor Mattick has worked at NDARC since shortly after it opened in 1986 and is a former Director of Centre. His major current research interests are in clinical trials for management of opioid dependence, psychostimulant substitution therapy, treatment of young drug dependent people, and the effects on cognitive functioning of exposure to psychostimulants and opioids.

He was the coordinator of the federally funded National Evaluation of Pharmacotherapies for Opioid Dependence studying 1500 opioid dependent patients assessing the impact of naltrexone, methadone, buprenorphine and LAAM. He has conducted the largest randomised clinical trial of buprenorphine versus methadone, and this study is a pivotal study for the US FDA registration of buprenorphine. He is an Editor on the Cochrane Review Group for Drugs and Alcohol, and Assistant Editor and Executive Editor (respectively) on the international journals Addiction and the Drug and Alcohol Review.

Professor Mattick’s membership of the Board is effective immediately until 2017.