Press Releases

FDA FOLLOWS SCIENCE WITH REJECTION OF MDMA 

August 9, 2024

Following Clinical Trial Plagued with Safety, Efficacy Failures, FDA Wisely Rejects Ecstasy-based Drug (WASHINGTON, DC) – Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions President Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former three-time White House drug policy advisor, released the following statement today in response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) rejecting an ecstasy-based drug, also known as MDMA, as […]

PERSPECTIVE: Big Tobacco is back

August 5, 2024

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds… We knew the world would not be the same… A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent.” These words, shared by the late J. Robert Oppenheimer describing the sentiment of his team of scientists when watching the first successful detonation of a […]

Sabet in Newsweek: ‘Safe Supply’ Won’t Stop the Drug Overdose Crisis

July 26, 2024

Earlier this month, Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia’s provincial health officer, attempted to make her province even more of an outlier than it already was in its response to the unprecedented drug crisis. Recognizing that prior harm reduction interventions had failed to bend the curve of the drug crisis, she submitted a report that recommended that British […]

OPED: Aurora’s embrace of Phillip Morris comes with significant costs

July 23, 2024

Why does Denver get investment from technology companies, AI, healthcare, and beyond, and Aurora is given the vice industries? At an event that hearkened back to Big Tobacco’s 1950s heyday, Gov. Jared Polis, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, and other city and state officials and tobacco industry leaders toasted the announcement that Phillip Morris will be […]

SABET: BC PROVINCIAL HEALTH REPORT MORE ALICE IN WONDERLAND THAN SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

July 13, 2024

Provincial Health Officer’s Assertions Is Pro-Drug Propaganda (VANCOUVER, BC) – Following the release of a pro-drug propaganda missive title “Alternative to Unregulated Drugs” by the British Columbia Office of the Provincial Health Officer, Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS)President Dr. Kevin Sabet, an international drug policy expert and former three-time U.S. White presidential drug policy advisor, along […]

PARTY PLATFORMS MUST COMBAT THE NATION’S MOUNTING DRUG CRISIS

July 8, 2024

Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions Urges RNC, DNC to Commit to Combating Harmful Drug Access and Addiction in Party Platforms (WASHINGTON, DC) – With Republican and Democratic national conventions just weeks away, the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS) is calling on both parties to commit in their respective platforms to combatting the nation’s drug crisis. With more […]

PROGRESS BEING MADE, BUT GREATER GLOBAL COOPERATION REQUIRED TO COMBAT ILLICIT DRUG USE 

June 26, 2024

June 26 is International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking Nations Urged to Embrace Treatment, Prevention, Not Harm Reduction (WASHINGTON, DC) – Despite an onslaught of misinformation and propaganda from pro-drug activists around the world, people are standing up and saying we want safer communities free from dangerous, illicit drugs.   That’s the message being shared […]

ILLINOIS WISELY PUTS THE BRAKES ON UNTESTED DRUG POLICY

May 30, 2024

Addiction Profiteers Suffer Setback In Quest to Bring More Drugs Into Illinois’ Communities (SPRINGFIELD, IL) – Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS) President Dr. Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy advisor to Presidents Obama, Bush, and Clinton, released the following statement today in response to the defeat of the Illinois CURE Act (SB3695), which will […]

FDPS Friday Fact 05/24/2024: Rate of U.S. Children Who Lost a Parent to a Drug Overdose per 100,000 Children, 2011-2021, by Race

May 24, 2024

A recent study in JAMA Psychiatry titled, “Estimated Number of Children Who Lost a Parent to Drug Overdose in the US From 2011 to 2021” estimated that 321,566 children lost a parent to a drug overdose.   The study estimated annual rates of children, by race, who lost a parent to a drug overdose from […]

Dr. Kevin Sabet on The Jas Johal Show

May 16, 2024

Listen to the podcast here.

Tom Wolf in NewsNation: San Francisco gives alcohol to help treat homeless people struggling with addiction

Read the full article here. “Tom Wolf, recovery advocate director at West Coast Initiatives Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, told NewsNation the city should put its efforts into promoting recovery, not maintaining people’s addictions.”

BRITISH COLUMBIA REPEALS DRUG DECRIMINALIZATION, HIGHLIGHTING THE PITFALLS OF LAX DRUG POLICY

May 8, 2024

VANCOUVER, BC) – Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS) and PROSPER President Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., a Vancouver resident and  former White House drug policy advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, released the following statement today in response to the abrupt announcement that British Columbia has reversed course on its dangerous experiment decriminalizing the possession of illicit drugs: “Given the […]

Tom Wolf in The Voice of San Francisco: SCOTUS must overturn Johnson v. Grants Pass

May 7, 2024

Read the full article here. On April 22, the Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the Johnson v. Grants Pass case, and they will decide sometime this summer whether it’s cruel and unusual punishment to remove the homeless from public spaces. Proponents argue that removing a homeless encampment from a public space violates eighth […]

FDPS President and CEO Dr. Kevin A. Sabet in The National Post: The harm-reduction movement has lost sight of what truly matters

April 29, 2024

Click here to read the full article. Earlier this year, the federal government delayed an extension of medical assistance in dying (MAID) to include those suffering solely from mental illness, which could have included people with substance use disorder. At the same time, British Columbia’s provincial officer of health called for the province’s “safe supply” […]

FDPS EVP Luke Niforatos in The Colorado Springs Gazette: Exposing Colorado’s psychedelic conflicts of interest

Click here to read the full article. As Colorado develops its regulatory framework for the psychedelics industry, we now see that it is being undermined by many of the same competing interests that have taken hold of the state’s profit-driven THC drug and marijuana industry. Most recently, Kevin Matthews, the president of Denver’s Psilocybin Review […]

Tom Wolf’s Legislative Debut: AB2479 Proposes Housing Recovery Funding

April 12, 2024

Tom Wolf’s inaugural legislative effort takes center stage as AB2479 is introduced in California. This proposal seeks to allocate up to 25% of housing first funding for recovery housing, a concept spearheaded by Tom through his affiliation with the Bay Area Council. This initiative can revolutionize housing and recovery support. Click here to view the […]

FISA SECTION 702 REAUTHORIZATION CRITICAL TO COMBATTING ILLICIT FENTANYL CRISIS

April 11, 2024

Intelligence Gathered Through Section 702 of FISA Has Been Critical to Disrupting The Flow of Illicit Drugs (WASHINGTON, DC) – A pivotal tool in the nation’s ongoing war against illicit drugs, especially dangerous illicit fentanyl, could soon be lost to law enforcement if House lawmakers can’t unify behind reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign […]

REPEAL OF MEASURE 110 A MAJOR VICTORY FOR ALL WHO CARE ABOUT RESPONSIBLE, PRODUCTIVE DRUG POLICY

April 2, 2024

Governor Kotek, Legislators Should be Praised Fixing the Public Policy Nightmare (SALEM, OR) – Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS) President Kevin A. Sabet, Ph.D., a former drug policy advisor to President Obama, released the following statement after Oregon Governor Tina Kotek signed bipartisan legislation to repeal the state’s controversial Measure 110, which decriminalized all drugs and […]

Oxy. Heroin. Fentanyl. Everything.

March 21, 2024

Jonathan Spear was 15 years old when he took hydrocodone for the first time. Doctors had prescribed the pills for his mother’s cancer. The powerful opioid filled Spear with a sense of contented bliss and eased the pain of watching his mother suffer from the disease that would take her life. Spear, now 29, eventually […]

“Oregon turned into the Wild West”: Decriminalizing drugs was an epic failure

March 20, 2024

The first state to remove penalties for possession is about to become the first to re-criminalize them. Experts say we should learn from Oregon’s mistakes. “No one wants to see people with addictions in jail or prison because they’re addicted to something,” argued Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions President Dr. Kevin Sabet in a recent […]

Of all the pot options, the best keeps it illegal

March 14, 2024

The first state to remove penalties for possession is about to become the first to re-criminalize them. Experts say we should learn from Oregon’s mistakes. Read the entire article HERE.

The Drug Review: Marijuana Dispensaries Sell to Thousands of Minors Every Year

March 11, 2024

By Connor Kubeisy, Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions  For years, advocates for the legalization of marijuana have been telling skeptical voters that dispensaries would not sell their products to minors. Their primary arguments have remained unchanged: legalizing and regulating marijuana is the only way to ensure that it will not end up in the hands of […]

Oregon lawmakers roll back nation’s most permissive drug law

March 8, 2024

Fatal overdoses have skyrocketed in the Beaver State The bill undoes much of what Measure 110 legalized more than three years ago. Over 58 percent of Oregon voters approved Measure 110 in November 2020. Instead of getting booked into jail, individuals cited for possessing drugs like fentanyl or heroin could choose between paying a $100 fine or […]

Oregon’s Failure…And Next Steps

March 6, 2024

February 1st marked three years since Oregon implemented Measure 110, the nation’s first experiment with the decriminalization of all drugs, including meth, cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl. Measure 110 has been a demonstrable failure by nearly all measures, seeing increases in fatal overdoses, nonfatal overdoses, illicit drug use, drug-related traffic fatalities, homelessness, public drug use, crime, […]