Alexander David Wodak, AM is a physician and the former director of the Alcohol and Drug Service, at St Vincent's Hospital, in

Sydney, Australia Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and List of cities in Oceania by population, Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metro ...

. Wodak is a notable advocate of

drug reform Drug liberalization is a drug policy process of decriminalizing or legalizing the use or sale of prohibited drugs. Variations of drug liberalization include: drug legalization, drug re-legalization and drug decriminalization. Proponents of drug ...

laws. Wodak helped establish the

National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) is an Australian research institution focusing on treatment and intervention in drug and alcohol abuse. Located at the University of New South Wales The University of New South Wales ...

, the NSW Users AIDS Association, and the Australian Society of HIV Medicine. Wodak is President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation and was President of the International Harm Reduction Association. Wodak also helped open Australia's first needle exchange programme and the first medically supervised injecting centre in Kings Cross. A portrait of him by artist Nick Mourtzakis was a 2009 Archibald Prize finalist. In the

2010 Queen's Birthday Honours The 2010 Birthday Honours for the Commonwealth realms were announced to celebrate the Queen's Birthday on 7 June 2010 in New Zealand, on 12 June 2010 in the United Kingdom, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Sain ...

, he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for "service to medicine and public health, particularly in the area of drug and alcohol dependency treatment, through legislative reform, and to medical education".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wodak, Alex Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian addiction physicians Australian drug policy reform activists Members of the Order of Australia