On January 6, 2020, the COBRE for the Center for Addiction & Disease Risk Exacerbation (CADRE), and the COBRE on Opioids and Addiction co-hosted Dr João Goulão in Providence, Rhode Island. As a part of the Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series (DVS2), Dr. Goulão presented his talk titled, "A Public Health Approach to Public Health Policy."
A medical doctor by profession, Dr. Goulão has over 30 years’ experience regarding drug-related issues, working in this field since 1987 as general practitioner, and since then his professional life has been devoted to drugs and health. He was a member of the Portuguese Committee that in 1999, prepared the report on which the first Portuguese Drug Strategy, which included decriminalize, was based.
His talk highlighted the strategies and the outcomes of decriminalizing drugs in Portugal.