BIOGRAPHY
Founder and
President, Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, San Francisco, California
Adjunct Professor, University of California Medical Center at San Francisco
Medical Consultant, Betty Ford Center, Rancho Mirage, California
Medical Director, State of California Alcohol and Drug Programs
Past President, American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM)
Dr. Smith
founded the Haight Ashbury Free clinics in June of 1967 and currently serves as
President and Medical Director. He is also Medical Director of the
California State Alcohol and
Drug Program working on the medical aspects of diversion to treatment under
California Proposition 36 and works with addicted health professionals at the
Betty Ford Center
Professional Recovery and Relapse Program in Rancho Mirage and the Addicted
Health Professional Monitoring and Reentry Program at David E. Smith, MD &
Associates in San Francisco. He is a past President of the
American Society of Addiction
Medicine (ASAM) and of the
California Society of
Addiction Medicine (CSAM). Dr. Smith is the Founder and Executive Editor of
the
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. Since 2000, he has been the
Editor-in-Chief of
AlcoholMD.com, a medical education and information website focusing on
alcohol problems and alcoholism.
Dr. Smith is
recognized as a national leader in the areas of the treatment of addictive
disease, the psychopharmacology of drugs, new research strategies in the
management of drug abuse problems, and proper prescribing practices for
physicians. He lectures on the management of dependence on psychoactive drugs,
including cocaine, alcohol and prescription drugs. He also speaks on the
subjects of impaired and recovering physicians, substance abuse in the workplace
and dual diagnosis disorders.
He teaches
that addiction is a primary medical illness which is best treated in a
multidisciplinary fashion with an abstinence oriented model of recovery
utilizing the group process and the 12-Step programs of Alcoholics Anonymous,
Narcotics Anonymous and Cocaine Anonymous as central to the process of recovery.
