Title: ATOD Section Announces Award Winners
Author:
Section/SPIG: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs
Issue Date:
San Francisco - The winners of the 2003 Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs Section awards were announced at the ATOD Business Meeting and Awards Ceremony last November in San Francisco. These individuals were chosen because of their noteworthy contributions to the ATOD field and their commitment to reducing overall alcohol, tobacco and other drug use. In each category, the winners exhibited outstanding leadership or produced an outstanding effort to reduce alcohol, tobacco or other drug use, which resulted in significant change within a targeted community. This year’s winners constituted a slate of overachievers who have addressed wide-ranging ATOD issues.
The following is a summary of the 2003 ATOD Section award winners.
Community-Based Leadership Award (two awards presented)
- The first Community-Based Leadership Award was presented to Johnnetta Davis-Joyce, newly appointed director of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation’s Center for Policy Analysis and Training. In this capacity, Joyce is responsible for planning and managing the training and technical support to all 50 states as well as the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
- The second award went to Rick Stoddard, a community tobacco control advocate from Webster, Mass. who lost his wife because of a tobacco-related illness. That event changed Stoddard's life forever. He wanted people to know what happened to his wife and how it affected his family. He also wanted people to know that the same thing could happen to them. He wanted kids never to start smoking. As a result, Stoddard became a tireless crusader for tobacco control. His story was so compelling that he was selected to appear in a series of ads sponsored by the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program. Presently, Stoddard travels around the country spreading his message to young people in schools about the dangers of tobacco.
College-Based Leadership Award (two awards presented)
- The first College-Based Leadership Award went to Linda Major, director of Student Involvement at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. In that capacity, she directs all student activity programs and departments on the campus. Before going to the University of Nebraska, Major had over 20 years of experience in community substance abuse prevention with a focus on environmental changes to improve policies, enforcement and practices. Major has been a model of how to weld research, scientific knowledge and advocacy practice to form an extremely sophisticated effort to reduce alcohol problems at her campus, in the surrounding city and now, statewide.
- The second award was presented to John Smeaton, MD, chief student affairs administrator at Lehigh University, director of the A Matter of Degree program to reduce high-risk drinking and co-chair of the Lehigh University/City of Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) coalition to reduce alcohol problems on campus and in the city. Smeaton has taken the unusually long-term perspective (and personal commitment) in looking at how the campus and community cultures regarding alcohol could be changed and plugged away at building campus/community coalitions to create new policy, social norms and behavioral changes. He turned Lehigh into a model of university commitment to handling alcohol (and other substance abuse) problems in a collaborative, planned, persistent fashion and has been a role model for optimism, clear thinking and leadership in persistently addressing this issue.
John D. Slade, MD Memorial Advocacy Award
- The Honorable Sila María Calderón, Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, was presented with the John D. Slade, MD Memorial Advocacy Award. Gov. Calderón is a long-time advocate for alcohol control policies. She demonstrates strong executive leadership through her commitment to improve the quality of life in Puerto Rican communities. She encourages community members to take ownership of the regulations that shape their lives and strives to work in positive ways to increase their participation in local activities. The Governor not only plays a leadership role, she also participates actively and is visible in all facets of community life (church, school, social, government and industry), encouraging young people and setting a positive example for the leaders of tomorrow.
Lifetime Achievement Award
- The Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Stanton Glantz, MD, professor of medicine and director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF,) where he is also co-leader of the Tobacco Control Program at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center. Glantz is no stranger to controversy; he seeks it out. His work in exposing the tobacco industry's lies is legendary. He helped expose what the tobacco industry knew and when it knew it with regard to the dangers of cigarette smoking and its link to lung cancer. He is a crusader for smoke-free policies in restaurants and bars. His work proved that such policies enhance restaurant revenue and led to a restaurant and bar smoking ban in California. Because Hollywood is such a powerful channel for promoting a lethal addiction that kills five million people worldwide each year, he is appealing to writers and producers to get smoking out of the movies.
The ATOD Section congratulates all of its award winners and we hope the selection of these individuals inspires you in your pursuit of excellence in all ATOD prevention and treatment efforts. Now is the time to start thinking about nominations for the 2004 ATOD Section awards. If you would like to nominate someone you think is worthy of any of our awards or for more information, please contact André Stanley at <stanleag@dhec.sc.gov>.
André Stanley, MPH
Awards Committee Chair