Vermont Substance Use Conference 2025

The Vermont Tobacco-Free Recovery team will provide strategies to improve tobacco-use rates among people living with mental health and/or substance use issues, as well as find ways to connect with more organizations to provide more services.

This session discusses the work of nonfatal overdose biosurveillance at the Vermont Department of Health Laboratory, funded via the CDC's Overdose Data to Action initiative. This is a critical strategy in efforts to inform drug overdose prevention policies and programs. Presenters will introduce our laboratory’s work to the broader substance-use intervention and prevention community, emphasizing the multifaceted collaborations necessary to establish a program of this scale.

Frequent cannabis use leads to increased tolerance.  The community of weed smokers has addressed this by encouraging periodic breaks from cannabis to help bring down tolerance.  Called a ‘t-break’, it is an organic harm reduction technique.  Unfortunately, without guidance, people often find a t-break harder than they thought.  The T-Break Guide was written from the wisdom of people who have successfully taken breaks. There are not many harm reduction resources for cannabis; come learn about this free one.

This workshop is for anyone who might benefit from knowing about a free cannabis harm reduction resource.

This session presents the science behind Medication-Assisted Treatment specific to Methadone Maintenance Treatment Programs (MMTP) in Opioid Treatment Programs (OTP). The session also describes a day in the life and the lifecycle of a patient in an OTP. Presenters will also cover innovative ways that they have seen success in patient retention and outcomes. Finally, attendees will be given the opportunity to pose medical questions about MMTP to an Addiction Certified Specialist.