In this episode, Joe Moore is joined by Kat Murti, Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), the largest youth-led network working to end the war on drugs. SSDP organizes at the campus, local, state, federal, and international levels, with more than 100 chapters across the U.S. and sister organizations worldwide.
Kat shares her personal journey into drug policy reform, from witnessing DEA raids on AIDS patients in the 1990s to fighting for civil liberties as a student at UC Berkeley. She explains how SSDP empowers young people to challenge outdated laws and promote policies rooted in compassion, scientific evidence, and human rights.
Topics Discussed
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The War on Drugs as a War on Us: Kat’s early realizations about the drug war’s racism, injustice, and destruction of civil liberties.
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Her Path to SSDP: From working on California’s Prop 19 cannabis campaign to serving on SSDP’s board and eventually becoming Executive Director.
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Meta Censorship Campaign: Why Meta’s restrictions on drug education and harm reduction content harm communities, and how SSDP is organizing public pressure to protect freedom of information online.
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Forced Institutionalization & Executive Orders: Kat critiques recent federal moves to expand forced treatment, cuts to naloxone training programs, and the misguided use of tariffs as “solutions” to the overdose crisis.
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The Fight Against DEA Scheduling of DOI & DOC: Why these research chemicals are vital to neuroscience and medicine, how SSDP challenged the DEA in court, and what’s at stake for future research.
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Illogical Drug Policy & Careerism: How prohibition persists due to political incentives, propaganda, and entrenched bureaucratic interests.
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Building a Better Future: Realigning incentive structures, embracing harm reduction, and supporting community-based solutions to drug use.
Key Takeaways
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The war on drugs is deeply racist, anti-science, and erodes civil liberties.
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Meta’s censorship of harm reduction information actively endangers lives.
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Forced treatment doesn’t work—addressing social conditions and providing safe housing does.
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DOI and DOC, rarely if ever used recreationally, are critical to medical research, and scheduling them would halt decades of progress.
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Real reform means both ending prohibition and creating environments where people feel supported, connected, and empowered.
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