What is Transparency? A Letter from Bunk Police / Transparency founder, Adam Auctor

Bunk Police Supporters—

For those of you who haven't heard about Transparency, or who have only seen mentions of it in passing, I wanted to share a little more detail about exactly what it is, and why we're so excited to bring it to life. Over a decade of work has led up to this moment, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to finally reach this point in our evolution.

The Bunk Police name and approach has served us well over the years—and to be clear, it will continue to exist and expand—but it has always had its limitations.

Transparency represents a different approach to harm reduction. A new start that showcases the research, innovation, and informative content that has always been a large part of our ethos—but in a way that's more appealing to those who might not be as familiar with substance use, music events, or psychonaut culture.

We would love to have our life-saving supplies in the hands of students, teachers, EMTs, and parents—or even on the shelves of pharmacies one day. For some of these individuals, the "Bunk Police" name and tactics might be just a little too much. It's time to simplify, streamline, and polish our approach so more people feel at home learning about harm reduction with us.

This is also an opportunity for The Bunk Police to lean even further into what it's good at. We'll be showcasing more festival related content, and showing our true colors even more than normal as part of the festival, EDM, and expansionary substance use cultures.

Some of the projects we've been working on for years will find their final home under the Transparency name. For instance, our new coffee table and reference book, Chromatic Reactions: The Art of Testing Drugs will be released under Transparency, as will our brand new Transparency Harm Reduction App. The initiative we're most excited about—the Transparency Documentary Series that has already kicked off with our first episode, Poison Pills, investigating sketchy Mexican pharmacies—will be the driving informational force behind our goal of bringing greater understanding and, yes, TRANSPARENCY to substance use.

The launch of Transparency also signals our move from being a solely for-profit entity into a hybrid model—containing a 501c3 nonprofit branch for outreach, along with a traditional for-profit branch that will be focused on deeper research and innovation. This flexible model will allow us to extend into new communities and also to allow for different types of funding for the projects of our dreams.

I started The Bunk Police back in 2011 as a one-man operation (and with about $9K in student loans). Since then, having self funded everything from that point, we’ve grown into a globally-spanning team, making our test kits accessible in over 120 different countries, tackling countless ambitious initiatives to spread the word about safety in the drug space, and diving head first into research and innovation opportunities at every turn. We really have accomplished so much, and we couldn't be prouder of how far we've come.

While we've been widely successful as our first harm reduction initiative, we are ready to take it to the next level and we truly believe that Transparency is the next step in our effort to save lives, open minds, and do our best to mitigate the many harms caused by the war on drugs.

For the first time in 13 years, we are opening up funding to people like you—our incredible community of supporters. If you believe in our mission of lowering overdose and drug related fatalities, as well as helping our community understand how to use expansionary substances safely—then please consider making a donation of any size. Every dollar counts when lives and minds are at stake.

Also, please spread the word about what we're trying to accomplish to those who have been impacted by this crisis, or might be in the future. So many people are unaware that testing and other harm reduction resources exist, and we're doing everything in our power to change that.

If you're interested in collaborating in any way, or if you just want to share your story about how The Bunk Police has impacted you over the years, then feel free to reach out. I'd love to hear from you.

More than anything, thank you so much for your years of kind and gracious support, it really is what drives us to keep taking our efforts to the next level.

All the Best,

Adam Auctor