IDCHS implements drug use prevention intervention programs using standardized intervention practices and to promote or advocate for the provision of drug dependence treatment and care services, which are based on scientific evidence and on ethical standards, including for children and adolescents.

IDCHS promotes policies, program and practices that aim to reduce the harms associated with the use of psychoactive drugs in people particularly youths, who are unable or not willing to stop. The defining features are the focus on the prevention of harm, rather than on the prevention of drug use itself, and the focus on people who continue to use drugs.

Current drug policies are failing causing enormous harm to individuals and society as a whole. Poorly drafted drug laws that seek to punish production, possession, use, and even dependence have fuelled violence, instability, and health crises in Sierra Leone and the world at large. Unfortunately in Sierra Leone, the youth population is largely affected by this. Young people within the age of 18 to 35 are forming a large proposition of inmates at the correctional centers on the grounds of minor drug related crime including possession of minor drugs.

Therefore, IDCHS seeks to propose under this intervention alternatives to the current way the Sierra Leone government is responding to the socio-cultural influence on perception of psychoactive substance use. One of our current alternative is for government to revised its current drug laws, policies and practices to reflect human rights, dignity of people who use drug, particularly young people, with much considerations to public health issues – particularly among key population like injecting drug users, men having sex with me and commercial sex workers etc. We believe that relative harm should be taken into account in the regulation of controlled substances.