| Transform Drug Policy Foundation | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | TDPF |
| Formation | 1996 |
| Type | NGO |
| Legal status | Foundation |
| Purpose/focus | Drug policy reform |
| Chief Executive | Caroline Pringle |
| Main organ | Board of Trustees |
| Website | http://www.tdpf.org.uk/ |
The Transform Drug Policy Foundation (TDPF)[1] is a registered non-profit charity based in the United Kingdom working in the field of drug policy and law reform. TDPF began as an independent campaign group called 'Transform, the campaign for a just and effective drug policy', and was set up in 1996 by its current Head of External Affairs, Danny Kushlick. The organisation achieved charitable status 2003 and was renamed 'Transform Drug Policy Foundation' in 2004. In 2007 Transform became the first UK based non-governmental organization (NGO) actively calling for the drug law reform, including the legal regulation drug production supply and use, to be granted special consultative status at the United Nations.
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The TDPF mission statement is:
"Transform Drug Policy Foundation exists to promote sustainable health and wellbeing by bringing about a just, effective and humane system to regulate and control drugs at local, national and international levels. "
TDPF describe their activities as to:
Transform's Vision:
"A world in which the War on Drugs is over and effective and humane systems of drug regulation have been established."
The organization believes that the current UK drug policies are not only failing but have themselves become the cause of many social problems. As an independent drug policy think tank, TDPF is consulted regularly by its key audiences in policy making, the NGO sector and the media [2].
TDPF develops, and advocates for, new policies to bring currently illegal drugs under effective legal control and regulation, based on evidence of effectiveness, claiming that current policy is outdated and demonstrably counter-productive, being based on populist law and order politics and a misplaced 'drug war' ideologies. TDPF argue that moves towards legal regulation and control of currently illegal drugs would produce dramatically improved policy outcomes as measured by key performance indicators in crime, public health and well being, social nuisance, environmental damage, international corruption and conflict, and public expenditure.
TDPF has been steadily gaining support from professionals and public figures; whose fields include policy making, academia, business, church, judiciary, police, media, public health and medicine[3]. Transform regularly appear in mainstream media debating, advising and responding to current issues within the drug policy field.
TDPF have a blog[4] which covers current media coverage often highlighting the myths, moral panic and misuse of statistics.
Transform has published the following books