Doctors Group Launches Campaign Empowering More Healthcare Professionals To Join Drug Decriminalization Movement

A group of doctors who support drug policy reform is launching a new campaign aimed at equipping physicians and healthcare professionals with skills to play a greater role in advocating for the decriminalization of drugs. Organizers say there’s a need for more voices from the medical community to take part in ongoing discussions around cannabis, psychedelics and harm reduction issues.

Doctors for Drug Policy Reform (D4DPR) says it’s spent the past year developing its new advocacy toolkit intended for healthcare professionals and scientists on “Transitioning from a Criminal Justice Model of Drug Use to a Health-focused Approach.” It includes guides to help would-be activists craft opinion pieces and engage with lawmakers and the media in order to “educate on the failures and lasting harms of the War on Drugs” and “confidently reframe drug use through a compassionate public health lens.”

“We’re assembling a core group of ‘on-call’ health professionals who are willing to lend their voice when timely advocacy opportunities arise,” says a recent D4DPR email about the effort, funded through a grant from the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA). “Now more than ever, we need healthcare professionals like you to speak up—especially when critical legislation is being debated.”

Bryon Adinoff, D4DPR’s president, told Marijuana Moment that it’s “imperative” that healthcare professionals take part.

“We want to health them speak up and learn how to do it in the right way,” he said.

Among the topics D4DPR is prioritizing with the new initiative are cannabis regulation, the decriminalization and therapeutic use of psychedelics as well as overdose prevention centers. By and large, Adinoff said, other medical professionals and organizations have “not been sufficiently active in this area.”

“Prohibition in general has really hurt individuals and communities around the world,” he said. “We’re obligated to speak up.”

In addition to guidance for how to engage in advocacy, the new D4DPR toolkit includes factsheets, a book of best advocacy practices and ways to connect with other advocates.

“Your insight and credibility can help shift public opinion, influence public policy, and reduce the stigma that harms our patients,” the group’s email to supporters says. “Together, we can create drug policies rooted in science, dignity, and care.”

Adinoff pointed out that health professionals are in a powerful position to influence public opinion, noting that “rightly or wrongly, survey after survey, we show up as the most trusted voice.”

“People believe us,” he said. “Even in this time of anti-science, I still think we have a better likelihood of being trusted to do the right thing—and say the right thing—compared to most other professions.”

D4DPR is asking would-be advocates to send an email to learn more about the new program.

The new advocacy push adds to other efforts the group has taken up in order to influence public policy. In March, for example, D4DPR published a position paper calling for states to decriminalize personal use and possession of an array of psychedelic substances.

“Criminalizing the personal use and possession of psychedelics is a costly misuse of resources,” it contends. “A cohesive state-level decriminalization framework would better align with evidence-based drug policies, ensuring a more just and effective response to substance use.”

The decriminalization white paper came on the heels of another D4DPR position paper about treatment strategies for opioid use disorder. That paper, by Hunter Platzman, argues that rather than rely agonist treatments such as methadone and buprenorphine, policymakers should embrace additional safer supply interventions, such as prescribing pharmaceutical-grade heroin.

While agonist treatments are legal, well established treatments, that paper argues, they’re used by fewer than 35 percent of people with opioid use disorder. Others are either unable to access the therapies or refuse them altogether. Prescription heroin, Platzman argues in the report, “demonstrates superior efficacy compared to traditional medications like methadone” and is far less lethal than highly toxic synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl.

In April of last year, meanwhile, D4DPR argued in a separate position paper that hemp-derived cannabinoids should be regulated more like marijuana.

“Our understanding of these compounds is limited,” the paper said of compounds like delta-8 THC. “Many have never been observed in nature and their toxicology is unknown.”

“Our stance at D4DPR,” it continued, “is that all intoxicating cannabinoids should be subject to a regulatory framework to ensure public safety.”

The cannabinoids paper was an attempt to bridge what the group described as a policy gap between between hemp—legalized federally through the 2018 Farm Bill—and marijuana, which remains federally illegal.

“The reason we got into this problem is by making this artificial distinction between two plants, hemp and cannabis, that are identical plants. One has low amounts of THC and one doesn’t,” Adinoff told Marijuana Moment at the time. “That’s what got us into this mess.”

D4DPR was long known as Doctors for Cannabis Regulation (DFCR) but rebranded in 2023 to reflect a growing focus on “a wider range of drug policy issues beyond cannabis,” including psychedelics and broader harm reduction matters, leaders said at the time.

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