News Item
Judge Robert Rancourt to join National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse
Posted: Tuesday, December 1, 2015
Tenth Judicial District Judge Robert G. Rancourt has been invited to participate in a national advisory group that helps guide the work of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, an organization that supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction.
Judge Rancourt was invited to participate in the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse by United States Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell. Judge Rancourt will participate in the Advisory Council for a four-year term beginning in Dec. 2015.
The Advisory Council serves a crucial role in advising the NIDA in its efforts to identify, review, and support the highest caliber of scientific research on drug abuse and addiction. The Advisory Council also provides NIDA input on ways to better carry out its knowledge development and knowledge dissemination missions. It provides advice on research opportunities to pursue, guidance on ways to improve approaches to stimulating research, suggestions on methods to disseminate research-based knowledge, and ideas for working more closely with constituent groups and consumers of NIDA's research.
The Advisory Council consists of 12 experts in scientific fields and six knowledgeable members of the general public selected from across the country. Ex-officio members of the Advisory Council include Secretary Burwell and National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins.
“I’m very happy to have been invited, on behalf of Secretary Burwell, to participate in the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse,” said Judge Rancourt, “and I look forward to working with such a distinguished group of professionals.”
Judge Rancourt has a long history of working on issues of drug abuse and addiction in the criminal justice system at the national, state, and community levels:
- He is the former chair, and current member, of the Board of Directors for the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, and is the former vice-president of the Congress of State Drug Court Associations.
- He formerly served as co-chair of the Minnesota Drug Court Initiative Advisory Committee.
- He implemented and presided over a juvenile drug court in Chisago County, and served as a member of the Chisago County Methamphetamine Task Force and Partners for a Drug-Free Chisago County.
Judge Rancourt was appointed to the bench in 2002, and is chambered in the Chisago County Courthouse in Center City.
Judge Rancourt's Detailed Profile
More information about the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse and the NIDA can be found at
http://www.drugabuse.gov.