February 10, 2024
Dear Hossein,
Thank you for your most recent communication. It is always a pleasure for me to receive the latest news from you and to be updated on the activities within Congress 60. If it is possible, I would like to see photos of the four Congress 60 buildings. That would help me visualize all that is happening there. I have so enjoyed all the photos you have sent me of such activities within those buildings. Regarding the four groups, are there some activities in which these groups meet together? Is this what is meant by your reference to “coordination meetings”? I like your idea of a future international conference hosted by Congress 60. In our future communications we can explore how this might be accomplished in terms of both the conference subject content, potential speakers, and the logistics of such a conference. Since Covid, many of the conferences sponsored here in the U.S. have moved to a virtual format and this trend has continued to the present, including the Harvard conference planned this Spring by Dr. Kelly. Is this also the case in Iran? I will give serious thought to your proposal related to this. I do think the idea has considerable merit. If political or logistical obstacles would pose insurmountable obstacles to such a conference, we could also consider an edited book published by Congress 60 with chapters prepared by an international cast of addiction treatment and recovery experts. The list of pending article publications of Congress 60 research is quite impressive. As to your question on future research endeavors, the future seems to lie in the emergence of synthetic drugs of increasing potency and addiction to drug combinations that produce effects and consequences greater than their component elements. I think for the foreseeable future, fentanyl and related analogues will be of great import and would encourage including these in your future research studies. It is unclear, for example, whether research findings on opium or heroin addiction are fully transferrable to addiction to more powerful synthetic opioids. Do keep me posted on your Dsap research efforts. I find all this quite fascinating and look forward to hearing more about its potentially beneficial effects. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on harm reduction strategies. I have changed my views on this over the years but have come to the same conclusion regarding their potential positive effects. What I now advocate is the integration of harm reduction and recovery initiation efforts—meeting people where they are but also assertively exposing them to pathways of recovery initiation.
Please extend my best regards to your family and to all members of Congress 60. I consider all of you part of my recovery family. Friends and Brothers Forever