STAGE 2. Analysing feasibility

What steps should be completed?

Step 3: Assess the community environment

COMMUNITY RESOURCES

Drug demand reduction interventions can be carried out when a community has sufficient resources. These are basically the legal, financial, preventive and treatment resources, and the mechanisms for social inclusion, in the region. Inquire to what extent these resources exist in your region.

Regarding the legal environment, if a community employs legal measures to regulate the supply and demand of drugs, any individual or group intervention will have legal backing and a multiplier effect. It is therefore useful to understand the opportunities and threats offered by local, regional, national and international drug legislation. +

Similarly, analysing the financial environment will allow you to locate any public and private funding available for drug demand reduction interventions. A community that is open to financing this kind of intervention prioritises this issue over others, and this is an opportunity to launch initiatives. It is useful to review the sources of funding that are likely to invest in drug demand reduction interventions and to consider which would fit the characteristics of your intervention and organisation best. It is also important to analyse the interests of the funding bodies, especially private entities, as it is inadvisable to accept funds from companies or lobbies (often presented in the form of social interest groups) with interests in the drugs field, such as the alcohol or tobacco industries. Eurocare, an alliance of non-governmental and public health organisations across Europe advocating for the prevention and reduction of alcohol-related harm, provides information about these organisations: 

Consulting the information available on your country’s government websites, or those of other agencies with competence in the field of drug demand reduction, is a useful way to explore the financial environment.

Finally, it is advisable to explore the resources for prevention, risk reduction, harm reduction, treatment and social inclusion (depending on the nature of your intervention) in your community. The more of these resources there are available to a community, the more prepared it will be to carry out new interventions to stop or limit new drug-related problems, so investigate the availability of these resources in your area.