Dan Reist
About Dan
Dan Reist, who retired in 2022, led a Vancouver-based team that focuses on communicating current evidence in a way that supports the evolution of effective policy and practice. With a background in continental philosophy and hermeneutics, Dan is quick to acknowledge that evidence is far more than statistics about patterns of use and harm and includes attention to the ways we experience and talk about drugs and drug use in our cultures and communities.
Dan has, for over two decades, contributed to policy dialogues in British Columbia related to substance use and addictive behaviours and has participated in many national and international discussions. He is deeply committed to a health promotion approach to substance use. He champions the careful use of language to describe substance use and the related risks and problems and seeks to bridge the ideological divides and professional barriers that have too often undermined effective responses.
He continues to lead the development of a competency-based approach to drug and gambling education. This includes the articulation of a set of drug literacy and gambling literacy competencies and the development of a suite of resources to support constructivist education using a variety of dialogic techniques.
Dan's interests include health promotion, dialogue and hermeneutics, theories of knowledge, the philosophy of education, healthy public policy and the phenomenology of psychoactive substance use.
Projects
- Alcohol and other drug screening and education
- BC Co/Lab
- BC Partners Evaluation
- Building capacity for effective drug education
- Building community capacity for effective drug education (completed)
- Changing the culture of substance use on campus
- Clearing the air: a systematic review of the evidence on the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and vapour devices
- Gambling online resource
- Gender, violence and health: Contexts of vulnerabilities, resiliencies and care among people in the sex industry
- Healthy Minds | Healthy Campuses
- Healthy relationships with food and substances on campus
- Helping communities
- Helping schools
- Here to Help (information products)
- iMinds drug education
- iMinds gambling education
- Let's talk about Vaping
- Let's Talk Cannabis
- Opioid Dialogues
- Opioid overdose crisis response
- Promoting Dialogue
- The Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act: A structural intervention impacting health equity for sex workers
- Visions: BC's mental health and substance use journal
- Youth Experiences Project: Police discretion with youth who use illicit substances
Publications
- Achieving collaboration: system level supports and actions
- Activities, policies and resources to address substance use on British Columbia campuses: A literature review and scan (PDF 2mb)
- Addiction research centres and the nurturing of creativity: the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, Canada
- Adolescent substance use and related harms in British Columbia (PDF 524kb)
- Alcohol consumption in British Columbia and Canada: A case for liquor taxes that reduce harm (PDF 334kb)
- Alcohol pricing, public health and the HST: Proposed incentives for BC drinkers to make healthy choices (PDF 402kb)
- Alcohol reality check (website)
- Alternatives to suspension (PDF 94kb)
- AME
- Ancient peoples and psychoactive plants (PDF 1.7mb)
- A parent's guide to cannabis and kids
- A Public Health Guide to Developing a Community Overdose Response Plan
- Art of motivation
- A submission to the BC Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services regarding the 2015 BC budget (PDF 200kb)
- A Wellness Perspective of Substance Use
- Beyond 2008: An international NGO forum (PDF 763kb)
- British Columbia methadone maintenance treatment program: A qualitative systems review – Summary report (PDF 509kb)
- Building on the evidence: A working paper on the sex industry in Canada
- Clearing the Air: A systematic review on the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and vapour devices
- Clearing the air: protocol for a systematic meta-narrative review on the harms and benefits of e-cigarettes and vapour devices
- Comprehensive school health (PDF 278kb)
- Dinner & dialogue: Engaging community in conversations about drinking culture (pdf 995 kb)
- Disability and the Phenomenological Gaze: Towards and Embodied Understanding of Addiction
- Disordered eating and unhealthy substance use among college students: A summary of the recent literature (PDF 718kb)
- Drug Education as Health Promotion
- Drug education is conversation
- Drug History Timeline
- Drugs and driving: Facilitator's guide
- Drugs and driving: Guide for community coalitions
- Evaluating Substance Use and Gambling Education
- Every door is the right door: A British Columbia planning framework to address problematic substance use and addiction (pdf 1.6 mb)
- Harm Reduction: A guide for campus communities
- Healthy schools: Some foundational theory (PDF 164kb)
- Helping people who use substances: A health promotion perspective
- Homelessness, mental health and substance use: Understanding the connections
- Housing and harm reduction: A policy framework for Greater Victoria (PDF 975kb)
- Housing and harm reduction: What is the role of harm reduction in addressing homelessness?
- iMinds: Grade 10 module (French) (PDF 2mb)
- iMinds: Grade 10 module (PDF 4mb)
- iMinds: Grade 4 module (French) (PDF 2mb)
- iMinds: Grade 4 module (PDF 4mb)
- iMinds: Grade 5 module (French) (PDF 1mb)
- iMinds: Grade 5 module (PDF 1mb)
- iMinds: Grade 6 module (French) (PDF 2mb)
- iMinds: Grade 6 module (PDF 4mb)
- iMinds: Grade 7 module (French) (PDF 4mb)
- iMinds: Grade 7 module (PDF 3mb)
- iMinds: Grade 8 module (French) (PDF 5mb)
- iMinds: Grade 8 module (PDF 5mb)
- iMinds: Grade 9 module (PDF 4mb)
- Lack of Confidence in Police Creates a “Blue Ceiling” for Sex Workers' Safety
- Legalization of Cannabis in Canada: Implementation strategies and public health
- Let's talk dialogue: Community conversations about drugs
- Making the System Easier to Navigate
- Managing Conflict: An Examination of Three-Way Alliances in Canadian Escort and Massage Businesses
- Mental Health Literacy: What does it mean for substance use and why does it matter?
- Methadone maintenance treatment in British Columbia, 1996-2008: Analysis and recommendations (PDF 756kb)
- Nurturing Resilience: A self-directed inquiry group guide
- One step further: Toward a Canadian civil society voice on drug policy (PDF 417kb)
- Patients Helping Patients Understand Opioid Substitution Treatment
- Philosophical inquiry and drug education
- Philosophical Inquiry and Drug Education
- Resilient Kids: How can parents help?
- Rethinking Drug Education
- School Policy Assessment Tool (PDF 114kb)
- School Policy Process Tool (PDF 138kb)
- Submission to the Inquiry into Modernizing BC's Liquor Laws from the Centre for Addictions Research of BC at the University of Victoria (PDF 153kb)
- Substance Use and Young People: A Guide for Families and Their Caring Communities
- The Ethics of Risk and Resilience (PDF 91kb)
- The Gift of Listening: A Guide to Mentoring Peers
- The Role of Schools in Addressing Tobacco
- Tobacco reduction in the context of mental health and addictions: A review of the evidence (PDF 633kb)
- Understanding Dialogue
- Understanding substance use: A health promotion perspective
- Using constructivist methods in drug education (239kb)
- Words, values and Canadians: A report on the dialogue at the National Symposium on Language (PDF 407kb)