An affiliate of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Medical School at Yale University, and dubbed by NBC News as the “prodigy of drug politics,” author, consultant, and advisor to three U.S. presidential administrations, and assistant professor, Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., has studied, researched, written about, and implemented drug policy for more than 25 years. He is currently the President and CEO of SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), a non-profit organization he founded with Congressman Patrick Kennedy and David Frum. His first book, Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths About Marijuana, was published by Beaufort (Midpoint) in 2013, and its second edition released in 2018. He is also the co-editor of Marijuana and Contemporary Health, published by Oxford University Press and an institute director at the University of Florida. His latest book, Smokescreen: What the Marijuana Industry Doesn’t Want You to Know, was distributed by Simon & Schuster in April, 2021 and released to critical acclaim.
His work as a government advisor began in the Clinton Administration as a researcher, and he was the senior speechwriter on drug policy in the Bush Administration (2002-2003). He returned to government in 2009, where he was asked to assist in drafting President Obama’s National Drug Control Strategy as a senior advisor. In 2011, he stepped down after being the only drug policy staffer to have served as a political appointee in a Democrat and Republican administration. He has since been profiled in Politico, Crain’s Business, Salon Magazine, the International Business Times, The Daily Beast, Vox, and many other publications as America’s point person on drug policy issues. He has spoken at the Allen and Co. Sun Valley Conference, the Aspen Ideas, New Yorker, and Politicon festivals, at the Puebla Ideas Conference to debate the former presidents of Mexico and Colombia, on the Organization of American States blue ribbon commission advising hemispheric drug policy, and in hundreds of forums and discussions.
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