Dr Kirstie Soar

I am a Trial Manager of the NIHR funded project SCeTCH (Smoking Cessation for the Homeless), in the Centre for Addictive Behaviours Research (CABR), School of Applied Sciences, London South Bank University (LSBU). I joined LSBU in 2020, having worked for the previous 20 years in the School of Psychology at the University of East London, where I was a Reader, Deputy Head of Department and led the Drugs and Addictive Behaviours Research Group.

My research interests are around the cognitive and psychobiological effects of recreational drug use (MDMA/Ecstasy, cannabis, cocaine, and Novel Psychoactive Substances) and more recently focus has shifted to vaping (both nicotine and cannabis), assessing the experiences of vapers, effects of vaping cannabis – and relative to smoking cannabis.  I have published over 35 research articles on these subjects, have received grants from Alcohol Change UK and conducted consultancy work for the National Centre for Smoking Cessation Training (NCSCT), a health care consulting company – PharmaStrat, Royal Society of Medicine and Essex and Thurrock Drug Action Teams.   My work has directly fed into NCSCT and Public Health England (PH) training guidelines and the Health and Social Care Committee Drugs Policy Inquiry (2019), and the UK Government Consultation: Advancing our Health: prevention in the 2020s Supporting Smokers to Quit.