João Castel-Branco Goulão
Speaker Spotlight:
João Castel-Branco Goulão, 1954, is the Chair of the Institute on Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies (ICAD, PI), the body within the Health Ministry responsible for the policy coordination in this field, dealing with licit and illicit substances issues, as well as with addictions without substance (gaming, gambling, screen abuse). He is also the National Coordinator for Addictive Behaviors and Dependencies, leading the Interministerial Technical Commission.
He was Chairman of the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) from 2009 to 2015 and has a long experience in the addictions field at international level. He was the chair of the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe for the period 2019-2022 and chair of the Horizontal Working Party on Drugs (HDG) during the Portuguese Presidency of the EU (2021).
A medical doctor by profession, Dr. Goulão has over 35 years’ experience regarding drug-related issues, working in this field since 1987 as general practitioner and since then all his professional life has been devoted to drugs and health. He was also a member of the Portuguese Committee that 1999 prepared the report on which the first Portuguese Drugs Strategy was based in, including the decriminalization proposal.