Director, Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR)
University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
College Park, Maryland, United States
Dr. Eric Wish received his Ph.D. in psychology from Washington University in St. Louis. He subsequently completed a NIDA post-doctoral fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology in the Department of Psychiatry at the Washington University School of Medicine. Between 1986 and 1990, Dr. Wish served as a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Justice in the Department of Justice, where he supervised the development and launching of the national DUF, later ADAM program, which monitored recent drug use in arrestees through collecting and analyzing their urine specimens. In 2000, Dr. Wish received a Lifetime Achievement Award for the ADAM program from the Office of Justice Programs at the U.S. Department of Justice. From 2013-2019, Dr. Wish developed and managed the Community Drug Early Warning System (CDEWS) for ONDCP, a system that detects emerging drugs by expanded testing of urine specimens. From 2014-2020, Dr. Wish served as PI of a cooperative agreement to launch NIDA’s National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS). Most recently, Dr. Wish led the development of the EDDS system for ONDCP to track drug use in ED overdose patients. Dr. Wish has published numerous articles and spoken widely about such issues as synthetic cannabinoids and other new psychoactive substances, recent increases in heroin and fentanyl use, the identification of drug use in offenders, relapse to heroin use by Vietnam veterans, and the validity of self-reports of drug use. Dr. Wish has served as Director of the CESAR at UMD since 1990 and is tenured in the Department of Criminology.
I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.