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This event, scheduled for November 16-19, 208 at the Hilton Washington will bring together leading experts focused on the impact of methamphetamine on critical populations (Women, Criminal Justice, and LGBT). Participants will include, but not be limited to State Health Authorities, Single State Authorities for Substance Abuse, State HIV/AIDS/STD Directors, and program directors for community-based organizations, government agency representatives, research leaders, clinicians, and key national organizations. Focus will be given to including representation from culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse groups and faith-based groups. The event is being designed to synthesize local successes and develop national strategies that participants can use to strengthen and expand existing efforts back home. It will address the areas of research, prevention, treatment, evidence-based practices, and training. We intend to prioritize up to 25 states/areas that are experiencing the greatest challenges with the targeted populations, and invite them to send a team of representatives with the capacity to leverage their participation in significant ways after the event is over (total number of participants will depend on final funding available).

Thus, a focus of this event is to move States and communities to further action. An equally important focus is to forge collaborations across Federal, State, and local government agencies. One model for such government collaboration was the newly formed SAMHSA/CDC interagency workgroup, convened to respond to Congressional concern that substantially more Federal collaboration is needed to address the intersection of methamphetamine use and the transmission of infectious diseases. CDC and others have demonstrated that Methamphetamine use is strongly linked to risky sexual behaviors and other behaviors that increase the risk of infectious diseases such as HIV, STDs, and hepatitis C. A primary goal of the Summit is to establish collaborative plans with all Federal co-sponsors similar to that which currently exists between SAMHSA and CDC, as well as to substantially build on the existing SAMHSA/CDC collaborative agenda.

SAMHSA/CSAT conceptualized this event with assistance from some of our proposed Federal co-sponsors, listed below. The Summit will utilize the meeting facilitation expertise of Strategic Applications International (SAI). This firm has extensive experience in strategic planning, fund development strategies, policy analysis, publication development, building training capacity, and fostering teamwork. SAI has demonstrated its skills set through producing the Governors’ Summits on Methamphetamine, which have established general Statewide action plans in more than 20 States. Participants in this national event who bring experience from those Governors’ Summits will add valuable input to addressing the specific needs of targeted populations at this event.

Given the expenses related to the Summit and our desire to support travel costs for as many participants as possible, we plan to partner both programmatically and financially with our Federal and corporate/ private-sector partners for this event. Such partners will be formally recognized in all Summit materials and at the podium. The Federal cosponsors for the Summit currently include CDC, HRSA, NIDA, CSAP, HHS Office of Women’s Health, and the Department of Justice’s Office of Community-Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). We are in ongoing discussions with several additional Federal, State, and non-governmental entities about collaborating with us and financially supporting this event.