Ann has been the Executive Director of the International Drug Policy Consortium since 2011. She previously held several roles on drug policy and harm reduction. She has a Masters Degree in Human Rights from Sussex University where she specialised in human rights and harm reduction.

Issue
Over the past decade, an increasing number of jurisdictions have adopted some form of decriminalisation of drug use and related activities in all corners of the world. However, decriminalisation has faced major push back in various settings, including the most recent counter-reform in Oregon, USA.

Key arguments
While over 60 jurisdictions in 40 countries have now adopted some form of decriminalisation policy for drug use, the actual models of decriminalisation adopted vary significantly. Inevitably, some of the successes and failures of decriminalisation will depend on the model chosen by decision makers, as well as on the wider contexts in which the policy exists. For this reason, IDPC developed a ‘gold standard’ of decriminalisation, which offers key principles for an effective, rights-based and empowering policy change.

The ‘gold standard’ makes it clear that decriminalisation alone (i.e., the removal of criminal sanctions) cannot single-handedly address the broader social issues faced by some of the most marginalised people who use drugs, including homelessness, poverty, unemployment, stigma, or a lack of availability of and access to harm reduction, treatment and other health and social services. And yet, proponents of counter-reforms have used decriminalisation as a scapegoat for failed State policies in this regard.

Implications and conclusions
This presentation aims to present IDPC’s ‘gold standard’ of decriminalisation, including the key components of broader social and health policies that should accompany any decriminalisation policy. It will demonstrate the success of IDPC's groundbreaking Drug Decriminalisation [e]Course which has been used by over 1,000 users from 106 countries. Importantly, the presentation will draw lessons from almost two decades of advocacy conducted by the IDPC network in favour of decriminalisation: what we did well, how our messaging evolved over the years, what we could do better, and how we can work collectively to resist counter-reforms.