FIGURE 1 Need for bidirectional communication.

underlying its recommendations, this committee sought to include the widest range of drug treatment programs possible and was careful not to exclude from discussions and consideration those programs that defined themselves as community-based. Likewise, the committee was cautious not to exclude, a priori, any significant programs of interest by a determination that they were not "community-based." Thus, the public workshops included representatives from a diverse group, ranging from small local programs that would be considered community-based by the most restrictive definition, to large and complex programs sponsored by entities such as the Department of Veterans Affairs, academic medical centers, state court systems, and managed care organizations.

The committee obtained information from a rich variety of sources. For example, roundtable and workshop discussions with providers, researchers, and policymakers were held and site visits made by the committee and staff to solicit a broad base of input from representative stakeholders in 19 states. These meetings included individuals with expertise at all levels of government, drug courts, Native American health, school-based programs, drug abuse counseling, and research, among others.

New treatment, research, and policy questions flow out of changes in the policy environment as well as the new scientific understanding of brain biology and the mechanisms of addictions. It is important, therefore, to accelerate the exchange of information and knowledge among the research, treatment, and policy areas in order to bring the benefits of treatment research to the drug treatment consumer and to society. The evidence for the barriers between research, treatment, and policy is discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 describes approaches to bridging the gap among stakeholders in this field, including technology transfer, organizational change, practice guidelines, use of consensus conferences and evidence-based reviews, top-down incentives and, most importantly, models that incorporate trust-building experiences. Chapters 4 and 5 address the challenges of the research/practice collaboration from the perspectives of the treatment provid-