The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) is a global network of 192 non-governmental organisations.¹ It focuses on issues related to drug production, trafficking, and use, promoting objective and open debate on the effectiveness, direction, and content of drug policies at national and international levels. The network supports evidence-based policies that are effective at reducing drug-related harm.

The IDPC has developed an e-training course on drug decriminalisation, an approach that sets out to reduce the harms caused by criminalisation on health, wellbeing, and rights of people who use drugs.² This is a free-to-access online learning course that is open to anyone interested in the topic. The aim of the course is to support and equip those interested in advocating for the decriminalisation of drug use and personal possession. The IDPC recognises that this approach ‘can sometimes be difficult to advocate for as it runs counter to decades of public and political messaging from a global “war on drugs”’.²

The course was created in 2021 by the IDPC in partnership with Mainline, Health[e]Foundation, and Frontline AIDS.^3,4,5 It contains seven modules which can be taken individually or collectively. Each module should take between one and two hours to complete:

1. Introduction, definitions and support for decriminalisation
2. Existing models of decriminalisation
3. Making the case for decriminalisation
4. Designing a decriminalisation model
5. Thresholds and defining drug possession for personal use
6. Designing decriminalisation: sanctions and intrusiveness
7. The ‘gold standard’ for decriminalisation.

1    For further information on the IDPC, visit: http://idpc.net.

2    Access to the e-course can be found at: https://idpc.net/alerts/2021/07/introducing-the-drug-decriminalisation-e-course

3    For further information on Mainline, visit: https://english.mainline.nl/

4    For further information on Health[e]Foundation, visit: https://healthefoundation.eu/

5    For further information on Frontline AIDS, visit: https://frontlineaids.org/