SAM President Kevin Sabet was honored to give the opening keynote at Oxford House’s 50th World Convention. He talked about the amazing model that Oxford House offers, how its principles lead to better outcomes, and the dangers both marijuana and kratom present to recovery communities and the larger world. You can watch the full address below and read his remarks, too!
Good morning!
It’s an honor to stand before you at the Oxford House National Conference, a gathering that always radiates hope, resilience, and the best of humanity.
I’m Kevin Sabet, President and CEO of Smart Approaches to Marijuana and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions. I come to you not only as an admirer of your work but also as someone who has spent decades wrestling with the national policies that shape the environment you work in.
I began my career researching drug policy in the Clinton administration and later served as a senior speechwriter on drug policy in the Bush White House. In 2009, I helped draft President Obama’s National Drug Control Strategy and served as the only drug policy staffer appointed by both Democratic and Republican administrations — back during a time when working for both parties wasn’t heretical.
Now I am fortunate to lead the premier organizations in the world working on marijuana and general drug policy. SAM and FDPS have been lucky to be able to guide policy from small communities on up, including on the recent Congressional effort to ban hemp-derived THC. We’re blessed to have some of the leading minds in addiction science on our advisory board. And I know you all know the name Rep. Patrick Kennedy, one of the greatest fighters for mental health and recovery in recent memory: Patrick is one of our co-founders. We literally wouldn’t be here without him. And he still plays a central role in our work.
You might be asking: What is that work?
It’s best summed up by a quote from Patrick himself: “Meet people where they are at but don’t leave them there.” The radical idea that we take our brothers and sisters by the hand and lead them to a better place.
That idea, ultimately, is the source of the FDPS blueprint for drug policy: the Hyannis Consensus. The blueprint centers prevention, treatment, and recovery.
That is, a culture of prevention backed by permanent government and private sector investment; accessible, tailored, evidence-based treatment that covers the whole human continuum from the physical to the spiritual; and strength-based recovery within a focused, caring community.
That’s what we do. That’s what we fight for by guiding policymakers and regulators and providing resources to families and communities across the country.
And that word, community, is why I am here. Why I do this work.
After all these years in policy, I’ve learned that the most powerful solutions don’t come from Washington.
They come from communities like yours.
Nothing compares to being in a room with people who are living proof that recovery works.
There is a different energy here than in DC’s corridors of power. It’s the energy of people who have rolled up their sleeves and created their own community, their own solutions, and their own miracle. As someone who has spent years looking at data and policy, I want to say that the human side of all this tells the most powerful story imaginable. The side that statistics can’t capture.
Like the look on a mother’s face when she sees her child come home to a sober home. The pride in a father’s voice when he tells his kids he has been clean for one more day.
Today I want to celebrate you, learn from you, and commit to working alongside you. So before anything else, I want to center the voices that matter most by reading you what folks who have called Oxford House their home have to say:
“My life has been easier to live soberly just from being in Oxford House… from members giving me rides to work and meetings… words cannot express how grateful I am.” — Joshua Scott, Resident (Arizona, 2023).
“I have no doubt in my heart or mind, Oxford saved me. Oxford gave my son his mom back.” — Shawna Peterson, Resident (Florida, 2023).
“I’m very grateful for my second chance with Oxford… Now I work an honest program with my sponsor… and I’m helping the new females who move into the house.” — Adriana F., Resident (Arizona, 2023).
Take Cathleen Hunter from Alabama.
She relapsed after nine months of sobriety, lost her job, and left her children with a man she thought she could trust. That man turned out to be a predator who nearly killed her son. Cathleen fell to her knees in surrender to the substance, begged God to save her child, and promised she would never use again. After rehab she found an Oxford House, where she discovered accountability and a recovery family.
There’s Jessie Fike, who says Oxford House took her in at her lowest, provided a safe place to live, the structure and accountability to build a solid foundation, and “the love of a family I’ve never had.” She got her family back, became an active alumna, and now works in recovery.
Chance Epple was serving a jail sentence when he heard a presentation about Oxford House. He had dreaded sober living because, in his experience, most homes cared more about money than recovery. But after his interview he knew Oxford House was different. At his first house meeting he was elected president; he learned to budget, regained his driver’s license, rekindled family relationships, and eventually served on the World Council.
What ties these stories together? Family, second chances, and a radical commitment to sobriety. Oxford House is where “family” is a verb. It’s rides to work, a chair saved at the meeting, a lights-on budget, a vote of confidence, and sometimes, a hard vote to protect the house. It’s the second chance our society talks about but too rarely offers. Oxford House does second chances—at scale, with dignity, and with results. The model is simple and radical: it’s democratically run, located in self-supporting homes. There’s no paid staff. You can stay as long as you’re sober, contribute, and aren’t disruptive. Officers rotate every six months. If someone relapses, the house votes to protect its sobriety. This model is both compassionate and evidence-based. That’s why the Oxford House model is nationally recognized.
Oxford House didn’t start in a boardroom. In 1975, while staying in a halfway house in Silver Spring, Maryland that lost funding, Paul Molloy and a handful of residents rented the home themselves and made a promise to each other: Sober living, shared responsibility, and democracy at the kitchen table (fueled in large part by Paul Molloy’s vision).
From that one house grew a movement that’s still changing lives.
That first Oxford House turned what could have been a crisis into a great opportunity and sparked a movement. Today, there are more than 3,500 Oxford Houses operating across America and abroad, providing safe and sober homes to more than 24,000 residents at any given time, and hundreds of thousands of people since its inception pgdf.org.
At Smart Approaches to Marijuana and the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions, our north star is simple. We build communities, not industries; we stand for prevention-first policies; and promote recovery always. That means we deeply believe in the work you all do as we fight policies and products that make sobriety harder and relapse easier. In that struggle, there are two major fronts that matter the most right now and are at the forefront of my mind every day.
The first, kind of obvious one, you’ve already heard about: The president’s been talking about it and he has a way of grabbing everyone’s attention.
I mean marijuana.
Right now, there’s an active push to get the federal government to move marijuana to Schedule III from Schedule I.
This would do a lot of damage, but let’s be clear about one immediate impact: putting marijuana in Schedule III would end the 280E tax penalty that currently blocks marijuana companies from deducting routine business expenses, including advertising. That would supercharge corporate marketing budgets and radically expand access to weed in legal states and elsewhere.
SAM opposes this move because public health, and not corporate tax relief, should drive drug policy. SAM backs prevention-first approaches that don’t expose kids and vulnerable adults to more promotion of high-potency products.
And there’s a lot of money already lining up to profit.
Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol have already destroyed millions of lives. And now they’ve invested billions in marijuana companies. Altria put $1.8 billion into Cronos. Constellation Brands poured $4 billion into Canopy. AB InBev partnered with Tilray on a $50 million-each beverage R&D venture. BAT invested $175 million into Organigram. Imperial Brands put C$123 million into Auxly.
These are not charity projects—they’re corporate beachheads.
It’s not just big business pushing here. It’s the wider culture. Celebrities and A‑listers now normalize widespread THC availability. That’s why we need equally loud voices explaining what commercialization means for families in recovery.
Schedule III would not suddenly make marijuana safe or tested. It would open the door for more advertising aimed at disadvantaged communities, prolong marijuana‑induced mental health disorders, and expose children to more marijuana imagery. One in three users develop a marijuana use disorder, which means moving marijuana to Schedule III would fuel profits with ever more addiction.
And alcohol? Really? That’s our aspiration? That’s like saying we should break our tail lights because our headlights are already broken just to be consistent.
The debate over drug policy today is as contentious as it has ever been. My guiding principle always stays the same: we should pursue policies that reduce addiction and make prevention AND recovery our North Star.
I believe we must find a middle path between incarceration and commercialization. That is why I co‑founded Smart Approaches to Marijuana: to push back against the false choice of “lock people up” or “let Big Marijuana run the show.”
When I describe marijuana as the most misunderstood drug in our country, I mean that we have allowed myths to replace facts. Today’s cannabis products are genetically engineered and extremely potent. This is not your mama’s weed.
But the bigger problem isn’t just the drug itself; it’s the commercialization and normalization that come with legal industries. When we legalize and commercialize any addictive substance, harm increases because of social and economic forces helping people obtain and use the stuff. It’s not just the pharmacology, in other words. Dispensaries and advertising often concentrate in poorer communities, and the promise that they will bring prosperity is, as I’ve said before, a fool’s narrative. Our north star should be to discourage use and invest in prevention. As I told a global gathering of policymakers earlier this year, a multibillion‑dollar movement is pushing drug legalization, and we must instead focus on prevention and recovery.
That’s all the more important because it’s not just marijuana we need to address. Everyone knows about marijuana already but here’s another drug starting to explode in use across the country: kratom.
You can find kratom sold as a wellness booster or a “sober” substitute for so-called “harder substances” in gas stations and convenience stores around the country. Many in recovery are learning the hard way that kratom can act on opioid receptors and reignite the cycle of dependence. It can kill you, too, despite having no warning label worthy of the risk. Families have paid that ultimate price: Ethan Pope, a 20-year-old man, died in Kansas with mitragynine toxicity listed as the cause. Krystal Talavera, a Florida mother, died from kratom toxicity. As did Jordan McKibban.
Public-health authorities have been sounding alarms about kratom for years. The CDC documented kratom-involved fatalities in multiple states; the FDA continues to warn that kratom is not approved for any medical use and carries serious risks; and investigative reporting has uncovered hundreds of kratom-related deaths. Meanwhile, “alcohol-alternative” kratom beverages have drawn lawsuits and an $8.75 million settlement over addiction and labeling claims.
We hear about the relapses in the rooms—AA and NA. That’s because kratom is treated as a loophole. But It’s just another trap. If a product can mimic an opioid, destabilize recovery, and hide behind the word herbal, it shouldn’t be sitting on the shelf next to the energy drinks. You know what else is herbal? Poison ivy, hemlock—that’s what killed Socrates. That’s what we’re talking about.
Just as with marijuana, there’s a powerful industry at work promoting kratom with a campaign of misinformation. At FDPS, we have publicly corrected these industry-sponsored myths about kratom. We’re not gonna stop. We’ll keep fighting so your second chance isn’t undermined by a gas-station bottle or a glossy “sober” ad.
Now, some might wonder why I’m talking about all this at an Oxford House convention.
It’s because you are the experts.
You know better than any think tank or senior fellow what addiction feels like and what recovery requires. Many of you have lost loved ones, people inside and outside of the rooms, to opioids or alcohol; some of you have seen what high‑potency marijuana can do to a teenager’s motivation or mental health. You also know that a sober environment isn’t created by accident – it’s built through boundaries, accountability, and support.
If the outside world is flooded with marketing and availability of dangerous and addictive products, your job inside these houses becomes exponentially harder. When policymakers consider letting the marijuana industry write off advertising and expand into every corner of our communities, your stories can cut through the noise. When legislators talk about shutting down transitional housing or restricting fair housing opportunities, your success is the evidence they need.
The facts are on your side. Oxford Houses are self‑run and self‑supporting; they produce higher rates of employment and custody regained than other aftercare programs. Every life you save proves it’s community that matters, not dollar signs.
I often sum up our mission at SAM and FDPS in simple phrases. Prevention is our North Star. People are not commodities. We should build communities. Recovery should be nourished. Freedom is the ability to say “no” to something that once controlled you.
These are the truths I’ve learned from you.
Every time a house holds its weekly meeting, you are practicing democracy. Every time a resident picks up a phone when another alcoholic or addict needs help instead of picking up a bottle, you are exercising freedom. Every time you throw a house barbecue or celebrate a sobriety anniversary with a cake, you are showing that joy doesn’t require intoxication.
These small acts add up. They create a culture where kids grow up seeing sobriety as normal, where neighbors see people in recovery as assets rather than liabilities, and where policymakers see community-driven solutions that deserve investment.
You have turned strangers into family. You’ve shown that leadership isn’t about titles; it’s about who takes out the trash when nobody is watching. That ethos is contagious. It challenges the lie that people with addiction can’t govern themselves. It challenges the lie that recovery is for the few. It challenges the lie that the only solutions are expensive residential treatment or giving up on standards altogether. Oxford House is proof that there is another way.
Addressing addiction isn’t about flipping a single policy switch. Rather, it requires a comprehensive approach. Yes, we must keep dangerous drugs off our streets and hold traffickers accountable. Yes, we must ensure that evidence-based treatments, including medication-assisted treatment, are available for those who need them.
But the other pillars, like prevention, recovery support, and community reintegration cannot be afterthoughts. We need stable housing like what Oxford House provides, job opportunities, and a surrounding culture that celebrates sobriety rather than glamorizing intoxication. We need accountability and addiction‑responsive incentives.
We need employers who understand that hiring someone in recovery isn’t an act of charity; it’s an investment in resilience. We need schools that teach students the real consequences of substance use: facts over fear. We need parents who model substance-free coping. We need churches, mosques, synagogues, and community organizations to open their doors to support groups.
This ecosystem of prevention and recovery, your ecosystem, is what truly bends the curve of addiction. Oxford House shows what works.
Let’s keep building it, house by house. And everyone: Let’s have some F E A R when you do it.
Face Everything And Recover.
Together we can and will do just that.
Thanks so much!