Drug Decriminalisation [e]Course is making an impact—help keep it accessible!

Since 2021, the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), Mainline, Health[e]Foundation, and Frontline AIDS have been proud to provide the Drug Decriminalisation[e]Course to more than 1,000 learners across 100+ countries – in Arabic, English, French, and Russian. We have made these courses free and accessible to anyone interested.

At its core, the Drug Decriminalisation[e]Course advocates for removing criminal penalties for certain drug-related activities in order to end the punishment and stigmatisation of people who use drugs. Evidence shows that decriminalization leads to significant public health benefits, including fewer overdose deaths and a decline in new HIV cases linked to injection drug use. You can read more about the [e]course from an earlier news item by clicking here and celebrate the most recent milestone in reaching the 1,000th learner by reading more here.

Impact

Just last quarter, we received over 200 evaluation surveys, providing valuable insights into the learner experience. The results speak for themselves:

• Satisfaction rate: 8.3/10
• Engagement rate: 4.3/5
• Recommendation rate: 8.5/10

These numbers confirm what we already know—learners are engaged, enjoy the course, and recommend it to others. As one participant mentioned:

“I highly recommend this course for anyone interested in promoting evidence and human rights based drug policy. The first module gives some necessary basic information about history of war on drugs and its racist and colonialist roots too. I find very important that given examples came around the world… I’m looking forward to carry out the next modules.”

However, like many programs around the world, this course too has been impacted by shifts in global development funding. As such, from April 1, the course will only be available in English. In the meantime, our team is actively fundraising to re-open the [e]course in all languages, as well as expanding it into Spanish. If you also believe in this work as much as we do and know of potential funding opportunities, please reach out to contact[@]idpc.net.

For now, if you haven’t already, we encourage you to explore the course and learn more about drug decriminalisation (https://idpc.healthefoundation.eu/).

Let’s continue!