The work of the Drug Policy Alliance is both all about drugs and ultimately not really about drugs at all.

We are at the front lines of much larger struggles in U.S. and international society – over what it means to remain a free society and how we deal with both real and phantom threats to health, life and security.

Donald Trump’s election and his appointment of drug war extremists to senior positions are going to make it harder to consolidate our marijuana legalization victories, and to make progress in Congress on rolling back harsh drug laws, repealing civil asset forfeiture laws, reducing overdose fatalities, and integrating harm reduction principles into federal drug policies.

But what most concerns us is the assault on the values for which we’ve fought for so long.

We advocate for drug policies grounded in science, compassion, health and human rights because we believe those values should infuse all public policies.  Only through our shared strength and vision can we uproot the drug war and advance the broader values that guide our struggle.

Only through our shared strength and vision can we uproot the drug war and advance the broader values that guide our struggle.

We’re counting on your continued support to make this possible.

Very truly yours,

Ethan & Ira

DPA works to end marijuana prohibition and create sensible systems of regulation for adult use. We also support creating access to marijuana for medical purposes and decriminalizing it in places where legalization is not yet politically feasible but where wasteful, racially discriminatory mass arrests persist. And we leverage marijuana policy reform to help rebuild communities most harmed by prohibition and criminalization.

The 2016 election was a watershed moment for the movement to end marijuana prohibition. California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada legalized marijuana, while medical marijuana initiatives prevailed in Arkansas, Florida, Montana and North Dakota. DPA was instrumental in all of these efforts— especially in California—helping with drafting, funding and advocacy. Now almost 200 million Americans live in medical marijuana states and more than 60 million live in states where marijuana prohibition is a thing of the past.

Our offices in New Jersey, New Mexico and New York have recently launched campaigns to legalize marijuana through their legislatures, and we’ll be working closely with allies to support similar efforts in several more states.

Now almost 200 million Americans live in medical marijuana states and more than 60 million live in states where marijuana prohibition is a thing of the past.

There are many tens of thousands fewer people behind bars today as a result of DPA’s efforts—and hundreds of thousands who either did not go to jail or prison, or who spent less time there, because of our work.

There are many tens of thousands fewer people behind bars today as a result of DPA’s efforts—and hundreds of thousands who either did not go to jail or prison, or who spent less time there, because of our work.

Our longstanding efforts to end civil asset forfeiture—the widespread police practice of seizing people’s property without even a conviction—paid off big time last year, as California and Florida pass reforms to protect people suspected of drug law violations from unjust property seizures. DPA played a pivotal role in both of these states’ efforts, working with allies from across the political spectrum.

Our focus is increasingly on reducing and ending criminal punishment for drug possession. And where drug use is still treated as a felony, as is the case in 32 states, we’re working to reduce it to a misdemeanor.

And at the local level, we’re leading efforts to initiate and implement Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) programs in several cities across the country such as Ithaca, Los Angeles, Pueblo, CO, Santa Fe and San Francisco.

DPA is leading the fight to reduce the death, disease, crime and suffering associated with both drug use and drug prohibition.

The past few years have been transformative for overdose prevention efforts in the U.S., and much of it can be credited to our efforts. In 2016 we led efforts in New Mexico and Maine to pass life-saving overdose prevention legislation that improves access to the overdose antidote, naloxone, and we were even able to override Governor LePage’s veto in Maine.

We’ve also led efforts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and other preventable diseases by making sterile syringes legally available. This has recently paid off in a big way over the past two
years, with Congress overturning the decades-long ban on federal funding for syringe access programs, and with states like Virginia, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky and Maryland passing legislative reforms to initiate such programs.

Your support is helping save lives every day, all over the country.

The past few years have been transformative for overdose prevention efforts in the U.S., and much of it can be credited to our efforts.

DPA exerts influence on U.S. involvement in global drug policy, advises foreign governments on their own drug policy reforms, provides leadership and coordination among U.S. groups, and contributes to the evolution of global drug policy through the media and strategic alliances.

When world leaders gathered in New York for the most significant international drug policy meeting in almost two decades, the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS), DPA amplified global calls for wholesale reform. We held events on race and the drug war and on the role of faith leaders in drug policy, and arranged for performers in prohibition-era attire to hand UN attendees copies of the Post-Prohibition Times, a newspaper printout of a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urging him to set the stage “for real reform of global drug control policy.”

This public letter, initiated and led by DPA, included an unprecedented and impressive range of signatories from Senators Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker and Bernie Sanders to former President Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton,businessmen Warren Buffett, George Soros and Richard Branson, actors Michael Douglas and Jane Fonda, singers John Legend and Mary J. Blige, activists Reverend Jesse Jackson, Gloria Steinem and Michelle Alexander, as well as distinguished legislators, cabinet ministers, and former UN officials.