Biography
Professor Owen Bowden-Jones is a Consultant in Addiction Psychiatry at the CNWL Club Drug Clinic, London, and an Honorary Professor at University College London.
In 2010, Owen founded the CNWL Club Drug Clinic, an innovative service offering treatment for emerging drug problems including novel psychoactive substances, club drugs, online purchased prescription medications, and chemsex. The service has since expanded to provide treatment within local sexual health services and universities.
National roles include Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), Policy Fellow at the University of Cambridge, board member at the International Society for the Study of Emerging Drugs, and special adviser to the Universities UK drugs taskforce.
Owen is the past-Chair of the Faculty of Addictions, Royal College of Psychiatrists, and was previously a national clinical adviser to Public Health England. He has been an adviser to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
His research interests include emerging drugs harms, particularly in young people, and with colleagues has produced the NEPTUNE clinical guidance and associated learning resources.
In 2023, Owen was honoured to be elected President of the Society for the Study of Addiction.
Declaration of interests
Owen is employed as a consultant psychiatrist at Central North-West London NHS Foundation. He is Chair of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, an expert advisor to Universities UK, a board member for the International Society for the Study of Emerging Drugs, and a member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. In the past five years, he has received payments from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA), and grant funding from the Health Foundation for an addiction-related project. He works in a private practice one day per week.