Commentary on Jacek Moskalewicz and Marta Welbel, Walking Through Mud; History of the Polish Methadone Maintenance Treatment from Its Stakeholders’ Perspectives

"Commentary on Jacek Moskalewicz and Marta Welbel, Walking Through Mud; History of the Polish Methadone Maintenance Treatment from Its Stakeholders’ Perspectives." Substance Use & Misuse, 48(11), pp. 1063–1064

THE AUTHORS

Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, directs the Open Society Foundations’ (OSF) Global Drug Policy Program, which provides grants to initiatives advocating an evidence-based approach to drug policy worldwide and encourages greater scrutiny of current international drug policy. As a major contributor to the debate about the interplay of drug use and HIV, she previously headed the Open Society International Harm Reduction Development program, introducing and significantly scaling up access to needle exchange and substitution treatment across Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Before joining OSF, Kasia worked for the United Nations Development Program in New York and then Warsaw, developing training programs for medical, prison, and police workers and managing outreach programs on harm reduction, women's health, HIV, medical ethics, and drug use. Kasia coauthored Poland's first National AIDS program and has helped formulate policy at the Global Fund, the WHO, the Millennium Challenge, and other bodies through her membership of various expert boards and committees. She received the Norman E. Zinberg Award for Achievement in the Field of Medicine in 2007 and the Gold Order Medal from the Polish Ministry of Justice in 2000 for work on HIV in prisons. Kasia holds a master's degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania and is now a doctoral candidate at Columbia University's School of Public Health in New York.