Presentation and research topics include:

• Substance use disorders: alcohol and other drugs
• Opioid use disorder treatment and overdose prevention
• What is harm reduction? Public health interventions that save lives.
• The U.S. public health response and the drug overdose crisis
• Medication for opioid use disorders: buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone
• Public policy and pain management: lessons learned
• Syringe Service Programs and the public health
• Pharmaceutical marketing and business ethics: emerging policy levers
• Should pharmaceutical representatives be licensed? 
• Access to addiction treatment in the criminal-legal system in the U.S.
• Drug smuggling into U.S. jails and prisons: are body scanners a solution?

Gail Groves Scott is a public health researcher and doctoral student in health policy, who has served on opioid crisis task forces, policy committees, and provided public testimony since 2016. She currently serves on the Advocacy Task Force of the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research In Substance Use and Addiction (AMERSA), and is an advisor to Pennsylvania Harm Reduction Network. Gail is active in the Lancaster County community where she and her spouse, Stephen T. Hohenwarter, raised their five children. Her research focuses on opioid use disorder policy, access to addiction treatment, and the pharmaceutical industry’s influence on medical education and policy. Prior to changing careers to work in public health policy, she worked in communications and marketing, including almost 17 years as a pharmaceutical representative. Her background also includes media relations for a Congressional campaign, fundraising for a public policy nonprofit, and one memorable day as a helicopter traffic reporter.

Gail holds a B.A. in Communication from Goucher College, and an MPH from University of the Sciences. She is currently a graduate student at St. Joseph’s University. She worked at USciences in 2016-17 as a Health Policy Fellow in Addiction Studies, while launching their Substance Use Disorders Institute, which she managed from 2017-2019. At SUDI, she wrote grants, conducted policy analysis, served as a guest lecturer, and developed continuing medical education for pharmacists, physicians, and healthcare practitioners. Their CE and CME courses include the first live four-hour university training course approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Office of Medical Marijuana, which has trained over 1000 clinicians to date.

Gail’s decision to become a whistleblower for the Department of Justice is connected to her passion for addressing corruption, misuse of public funds and abuse of the public trust. A False Claims Act case she helped initiate against the manufacturer of an opioid addiction treatment, resulted in two record-setting civil settlements totaling $2 billion, in addition to several criminal convictions. She has also served as an unpaid fact witness in the Purdue Pharma investigation by the federal government, related to their marketing of opioid pain medications, including OxyContin.