Drug Free America Foundation works in collaboration with the Drug Prevention Network of the Americas (DPNA). The International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy is a network of professionals and community leaders from across the globe who support and promote drug demand reduction principles and strive to advance communication and cooperation among nongovernment organizations (NGO’s) who are working to stem illicit drug use and promote sound drug policy around the world.

ACTIVITIES
Drug Free America Foundation convenes annual meetings of the members of DPNA, its International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse and its Institute on Global Drug Policy to continuously train leaders from Latin America and North America on drug policy issues. These issues include harm reduction and other strategies being utilized by the drug culture to achieve the goal of drug legalization worldwide. The training reinforces effective demand reduction principles and programs. It enables the attendees to mobilize their communities against substance abuse and efforts to legalize drugs in their communities. The key individuals being trained are mutually agreed upon by members of DPNA and are English-speaking decision makers who advise governments, intellectuals, researchers, doctors and other community leaders and who are willing to commit to the following:

1. Train in their own communities.
2. Utilize what they learn and share it through various ways such as writing papers and articles; presenting at local, regional, national and international conferences and meetings; and participating in media appearances.

The meetings provide training to the attendees to develop and enhance an international drug demand task force that is skilled in writing papers and articles, and conducting lectures and other public appearances about drug legalization issues such as harm reduction, medical excuse marijuana, hemp, maintenance drug treatment, etc. These task force members are able to educate the public about social, health and economic costs of drug legalization and permissive drug policies. The meetings also focus on the development of an international communication system and a rapid response mechanism to create and disseminate responses utilizing the experts within the Institute and the Forum to refute false claims and misinformation advanced by drug legalization advocates in print media around the world.

Members of the Institute and the Forum are utilized as trainers for these meetings. The meetings focus on an exchange of information so members also benefit from these events as attendees. Effective strategies are also developed to combat the drug legalization campaign that is being waged.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
As a result of the meetings, attendees have now done the following.

1. Obtained a broader understanding of patterns and impacts of drug use, legalization initiatives that weaken demand reduction policies and how drug use promotion, commonly referred to as “harm reduction,” has been used to promote drug use among youth.
2. Understood the role that drug use enabling strategies play in drug legalization efforts.
3. Obtained knowledge about innovative technologies and current scientific information to combat drugs of abuse.
4. Learned media strategies to effectively get their messages out to the public.
5. Obtained training materials to assist them in their local drug demand reduction efforts.
6. Developed definitive strategies to combat drug legalization and permissive drug policies.
7. Developed a level of competency in presenting and disseminating in a variety of ways the materials that have been presented.

DEPLOYMENT PLAN
On-site Logistical Support
The deployment of technical support personnel required logistical support in Latin America. This involved identifying appropriate communities in need of technical assistance, assisting with the development of materials that were delivered to those communities, assisting with the selection and orientation of appropriate taskforce members whom were deployed to the targeted community/audience, coordination of logistical arrangements to support the taskforce members and collection and reporting of data required by Drug Free America Foundation to provide ongoing evaluation of the effort.

TOPICS
Technical support was provided in two areas: 1) Coalition Building and 2) Best Practices in Prevention Strategies (Best Practices). Under the topic Best Practices, support is provided related to the development of effective prevention programs and policies.

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