Drug Policy Alliance

The Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) is the nation's leading organization promoting drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights. DPA's mission is to advance those policies and attitudes that best reduce the harms of both drug use and drug prohibition, and to promote the sovereignty of individuals over their minds and bodies. The DPA network is comprised of individuals who believe the war on drugs must end. Together with their support, DPA work's to ensure that our nation's drug policies no longer arrest, incarcerate, disenfranchise and otherwise harm millions - particularly young people and people of color who are disproportionately affected by the war on drugs.

DPA’s vision is to end the war on drugs and create a new world where a person’s involvement with dru

Goal One: End the criminalization of drug use and possession.

Goal Two: Alleviate the overdose crisis by expanding access to health, harm reduction, and drug treatment services.

Goal Three: Legalize marijuana in a just and equitable way while repairing the harms of prohibition.

DPA regularly provides funding for staff to attend leadership and management training events.

Last year, drug overdose deaths reached the highest figure on record. This surge was fueled by the pandemic, as harm reduction programs and syringe services proven to prevent overdose deaths experienced closures and budget cuts. The pandemic also underscored the urgency of our work around decarceration, as incarcerated people became at profound risk of contracting and spreading the virus. COVID-19 touched so many aspects of our advocacy, demanding that we make the case for our long-standing drug policy reform priorities as essential components of the pandemic response. We released a set of drug policy reform recommendations aimed at mitigating the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable communities. This document, which we shared widely across the drug policy reform movement, outlined necessary reforms in substance use disorder treatment, harm reduction, decarceration, re-entry, and marijuana policy. It serves as our guide for state and federal policy advocacy. We also held a series of webinars examining critical drug policy, health policy, and criminal legal policy issues through the lens of the pandemic. More than 30 representatives from partner organizations joined us as panelists, and thousands of people attended the discussions. We also convened researchers and academics in a series of webinars to facilitate collaboration between interdisciplinary researchers, community-based organizations, and people who use drugs. Our efforts have been incredibly successful. We secured first-ever federal funding, totaling $30 million in the American Rescue Plan Act (the COVID-19 Stimulus Package), for harm reduction programs, and we are on track to secure $69.5 million explicitly for syringe access programs in a regular spending bill. We also introduced a far-reaching bill in Congress, the Drug Policy Reform Act, to shift drug policies away from criminalization and toward strategies that are health-focused and evidence-based.