DPMP Overview

The DPMP is concerned with research and practice in illicit drug policy.

The goal of DPMP is to create valuable new drug policy insights, ideas and interventions that will allow Australia to respond with alacrity and success to illicit drug use.

DPMP focuses on enabling a more comprehensive approach to drug policy; exploring dynamic interactions between law enforcement, prevention, treatment and harm reduction. It also integrates research and policy practice, examines national, state and local levels of policy making, is concerned with all illicit drugs, and uses new methods and tools.

Over the next five years, DPMP will conduct rigorous research that provides independent, balanced, non-partisan policy analysis. The areas of work include:

1. developing the evidence-base for policy;
2. developing, implementing and evaluating dynamic policy-relevant models of drug issues; and
3. studying policy-making processes in Australia.

There are four elements to DPMP:

1. Policy Research – undertaking quantitative and qualitative policy analyses that accommodate the complexity of multiple domains, levels, drugs and outcomes. This will also involve studying the policy-making process. Projects include:

1. Quantitative policy analysis of returns on investment across policy domains
2. Research into hybrid models that can explore complex dynamics
3. Study of the uptake of research evidence into policy, and the research-policy nexus
4. Study of how drug policy has been and is made in Australia
   
   

2. Policy Practice – engaging with policy-makers and providing them with policy analysis and solutions for the problems currently facing them. Projects include:

1. Consultancy to governments on specific policy problems
2. The application and evaluation of dynamic models to decision-making processes (testing scenarios with policy makers)
3. Evaluation of the utility and relevance of DPMP information to policy-making processes
   
   

3. Interventions – conducting demonstration projects of new policy options under experimental conditions. Projects include:

1. Three demonstration projects of new law enforcement approaches at the local, state and federal levels
2. Working with treatment, prevention and harm reduction researchers to add policy analyses to existing trials
   
   

4. Foundational Research – developing and maintaining policy relevant data, systems and approaches. Projects include:

1. A record linkage study – longitudinal cohort of injectors
2. Working with economic data, such as drug prices, government spending, costs of interventions, cost savings and so on, for use in policy analyses
3. Updating estimates of the prevalence and trends in drug use, harms and the effectiveness of interventions

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