Empowerment through education and science: three intersecting strands in the career of Griffith Edwards

This paper describes three important strands in the career of Griffith Edwards that define him as a leader and an innovator. Believing that education and science were critical for the development of addiction as a profession and as a field of inquiry, his approach was multi-faceted: educating all doctors to appreciate the fundamental issues in addiction; training psychiatrists in the complexity of 'dual diagnosis' and specific specialist intervention; and teaching that addiction could be a chronic condition which required care management over the life course. These three inter-related areas are directly related to the need for a range of practitioners to have an understanding of addiction so that patients can be properly managed. The greater our understanding of the nature of addiction behaviour, the more likely the potential to optimize treatment and train practitioners from different professional disciplines.