SAM Trainings

An affiliate of Yale University’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies and the Medical School, dubbed by NBC News the “prodigy of drug politics,” Kevin A. Sabet has studied, researched, written about, and implemented drug policy for more than 25 years. He is the only bipartisan drug policy advisor to have served in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, and co-founded SAM and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions with Congressman Patrick Kennedy. His books include Reefer Sanity, the award-winning Smokescreen (optioned for the documentary THC INC, for which he is an executive producer), and One Nation Under the Influence (Polity, 2025). He has spoken at the Aspen Ideas Festival, Politicon, the Allen and Co. Sun Valley Conference, and before the Organization of American States, and has been featured on the front page of the New York Times. He received his doctorate and master’s degrees from Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar.

Luke Niforatos drives the strategy behind SAM’s federal, state, and educational initiatives, drawing on more than a decade working on drug, addiction, and health care issues. He has testified in state capitols across the country, been featured in Time Magazine, and spoken at drug policy events held by The Economist, the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, and hundreds of town halls. Before SAM he co-founded a successful healthcare company. He attended the University of Denver, holds a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University, and is a J.D. candidate at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law.

Coming from a legacy of civil rights leaders in Washington, D.C., Will Jones is an experienced speaker and community activist on social justice at the local and national level. In 2014 he founded Two Is Enough DC to raise awareness of a predatory marijuana industry that targets disenfranchised communities the way alcohol and Big Tobacco do, and later led the campaign against legalization and commercialization in D.C. He has appeared on NBC, Reuters TV, CBS, BBC World, Al Jazeera, and C-SPAN and in the Washington Post, Huffington Post, and Associated Press. A third-generation Washingtonian, he served as a sergeant with DC Fire and EMS and holds an MPA from the George Washington University Trachtenberg School.

Jordan Davidson leads SAM’s federal policy and congressional strategy. He entered long-term addiction recovery at 17 after struggling with cannabis use disorder, an experience that shapes his work on youth prevention today. On Capitol Hill he helped shepherd passage of the Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act, the first marijuana reform bill signed into law, and led successful efforts to defeat the MORE Act, the States Reform Act, the Cannabis Administration and Opportunity Act, and the SAFE Banking Act. He drove SAM’s strategy to enact a federal hemp THC ban and leads SAM’s work on kratom. A frequent speaker for members of Congress and organizations nationwide, he holds a BA from American University and is a part-time J.D. candidate at George Washington University Law School.

Dr. Evins is an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Addiction Medicine and the Addiction Research Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research focuses on new pharmacologic and behavioral treatments for addiction, including in people with major mental illness, and on personalized treatment for addictive disorders. She has published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Biological Psychiatry, and Neuropsychopharmacology, received two NIDA career awards and two NARSAD Young Investigator Awards, and holds a master’s in public health from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Harris is an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Boston Children’s Hospital Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research (CeASAR), which pioneered adolescent substance use screening and developed the CRAFFT screen, now the internationally recommended standard. CeASAR’s research, conducted with partners worldwide, includes the effects of adolescent substance use on brain development. She has published nearly 70 original scientific papers and received the Young Professional Award from the American Public Health Association’s Maternal and Child Health Section.