White House Drug Expert to Speak in Portsmouth

The acting director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy is the keynote speaker at an educational session on safe opioid prescription Saturday in Portsmouth.

Michael Botticelli will speak at a SCOPE of Pain event at the Sheraton Harborside Hotel in Portsmouth. The event, which runs from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., is geared toward doctors and nurses and the medical community at large. 

The New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area is co-sponsoring it.

SCOPE stands for "Safe and Competent Opioid Prescribing Education.

The educational sessions were created by Boston University's School of Medicine and feature some of the nation’s leading experts on opioid analgesics and addiction. These experts provide doctors with education that enables them to effectively assess misuse risk in individual patients, monitor for misuse after prescribing, and help patients who show signs of misuse.

Col. Robert Quinn of the New Hampshire State Police will give opening remarks.

A panel at noon Saturday will include several experts, including:

• Adele Audet, MA Department of Public Health

• Nancy Coffey, US Drug Enforcement Administration

• Lt. Matthew Shapiro, New Hampshire State Police

• Karen Simone, PharmD, DABAT, Northern New England Poison Center