Our Mission
To develop networks of informed and empowered people who work to improve the health and social conditions of people who use illegal drugs. We are committed to ensuring people who use drugs have a voice in their community and nationally. People who use drugs should be engaged and involved in any service, policy or program designed for them.
Our guiding principle
"Nothing About Us Without Us"
The Canadian Association of People who Use Drugs is raising the voice of people who use drugs throughout the policy making process at every level of government.
We strive to reduce oppressive societal conditions that people who currently or formerly use drugs face and emphasize the need for their direct involvement in public policy decision making. We focus on the strengths, talents, and merits of our membership as we build a better future for people who use drugs (PWUD).
In 2013, members of the Canadian Association of People Who Use Drugs (CAPUD) came together in Victoria, British Columbia, for a national meeting of PWUD from which emerged our report Collective Voices Effecting Change. This report highlights who we are, key issues experienced by PWUD, what is being done (current actions by user-led organizations), what needs to be done (strategies for building a national radical movement), and how we should be involved (principles for participation and self representation). The national meeting passed several motions for CAPUD such as participating in International Drug Users Remembrance Day, supporting conversations for a national conference and adopting the ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’ guiding principle.
CAPUD identified the need for more tools and resources on how best to include PWUD in the decision-making process to be apart of the decisions made affecting their lives, both to better prepare its members to participate and to equip ally organizations to better include people who use drugs meaningfully.
From these efforts came the Peerology document, which is an instructional manual made by for and by PWUD on how to include people who use(d) drugs as leaders in the field of drug policy. The document has an overview of leadership by PWUD, leadership training, getting involved, the human touch, and setting up programs by and for PWUD.
In 2015, CAPUD intervened on a Supreme Court brief in a case about the constitutionality of mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders.
CAPUD has also created many other documents since then as a national organization and we have reviewed plenty of documents to make the literature more inclusive of PWUD.
Two of our most notably cited and inquired about documents are This Tent Saves Lives, which is a guidebook on how to open an overdose prevention site and our Safe Supply Concept Document, which is a concept document introducing our belief that PWUD should have a safe supply of drugs.
We have also created a guide for Drug Service Providers during the COVID-19 era and are working on compiling all of the data we have collected to make another series of COVID-19 booklets.
We currently have members in most Canadian provinces. Our board is composed entirely of people who use(d) drugs. Our office is located in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. We are thrilled to be advancing drug policy from the Atlantic Canadian region.
We have no place in our organization for any forms of racism.
CAPUD is grateful to the MAC AIDS Fund for funding our organizational development and for the support of the Canadian AIDS Society, HIV Legal Network, Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, British Columbia Center on Substance Use, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Substance Use and Addiction Program and the Canadian Institute for Health Research, all of which have contributed resources to CAPUD, either financial or in kind.