LITTLE ROCK – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge announced the 11th Annual Arkansas Drug Abuse Prevention Summit will be held on October 12 at the Hot Springs Convention Center.
The annual event is a free training and educational opportunity for Arkansas’s law enforcement community, medical professionals, pharmacists, educators, Peer Recovery Specialists and families. Members of the public may also attend and will have the opportunity to hear from experts regarding prescription drug abuse prevention and treatment. The event will offer five breakout tracks: Clinical, Criminal Justice, Counseling/Recovery, Education/Prevention and Family.
“My office continues the fight against this raging epidemic that has plagued our state as well as the nation,” said Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. “It is of the utmost importance to continue to educate ourselves and develop new ways to fight drug abuse.”
Rutledge will be the keynote speaker for the summit discussing the work that she has done over the past eight years as Attorney General.
The summit attendees will hear from Dr. Bertha Madras, a professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Madras served as a panelist at the Vatican Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 2017 and was appointed to be one of six members of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. Fred Muench, a clinical psychologist and the President of The Partnership to End Addiction, will also address the summit.
Mark Westfall, a psychiatrist specializing in child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry, will also give a presentation. Westfall is a national recipient of the APA/Mead Johnson Fellowship Award in community psychiatry. He has previously held positions as Medical Director of the Community Mental Health Center in Charleston, as well as President of the Frank Kay Psychiatric Clinic in Birmingham. Westfall is the President and Owner of Westfall Psychiatric Services and a radio talk show co-host for “Oh Brother Radio” and “Doc Talk”.
For more information on the event or to register click here.
About Attorney General Leslie Rutledge
Leslie Carol Rutledge is the 56th Attorney General of Arkansas. Elected on November 4, 2014, and sworn in on January 13, 2015, she is the first woman and first Republican in Arkansas history to be elected as Attorney General. She was resoundingly re-elected on November 6, 2018. Since taking office, she has significantly increased the number of arrests and convictions against online predators who exploit children and con artists who steal taxpayer money through Social Security Disability and Medicaid fraud. Further, she has held Rutledge Roundtable meetings and Mobile Office hours in every county of the State each year, and launched a Military and Veterans Initiative. She has led efforts to roll back government regulations that hurt job creators, fight the opioid epidemic, teach internet safety, combat domestic violence and make the office the top law firm for Arkansans. Rutledge serves on committees for Consumer Protection, Criminal Law and Veterans Affairs for the National Association of Attorneys General. She also served as the former Chairwoman of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
A native of Batesville, she is a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law. Rutledge clerked for the Arkansas Court of Appeals, was Deputy Counsel for former Governor Mike Huckabee, served as a Deputy Prosecuting Attorney in Lonoke County and was an Attorney at the Department of Human Services before serving as Counsel at the Republican National Committee. Rutledge and her husband, Boyce, have one daughter. The family has a home in Pulaski County and a farm in Crittenden County.