He was also a senior lecturer in addictions in the department of psychiatry at Birmingham University, and worked for Birmingham DAT. He qualified with a first class honours in psychology and philosophy, a Masters with distinction in criminology and PhD in addiction psychology. He spent ten years working in research at the National Addiction Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, working on a range of studies of drug and alcohol treatment, preventing drug-related deaths and assessing the drug-crime relationship. David is a regular and key contributor to discussions on policy and practice, for example see Different Roads. (David Best, Jessica Loaring, Safeena Ghufran and Ed Day) 19 May 2008 drinkanddrugsnews.<< show less