Dr Alex Wodak AM is a retired physician who was President of the Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation for many years. He has worked full time on drug law reform and then tobacco harm reduction as a volunteer in his retirement. Together with colleagues, he started the first needle syringe programme (1986) and the first medically supervised injecting centre (1999) in Australia when both were pre-legal. Dr Wodak was President of the International Harm Reduction Association (1996-2004). He has been interested in tobacco harm reduction since 1992 but only active in THR in recent years. Dr Wodak helped to start the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (1987).