Non-profit

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP)

Students For Sensible Drug Policy Logo (link)
Website:

www.ssdp.org

Location:

WASHINGTON, DC

Tax ID:

52-2296291

Tax-Exempt Status:

501(c)(3)

Budget (2020):

Revenue: $784,117
Expenses: $633,500
Assets: $249,878

Type:

Drug Use Advocacy

Formation:

1998

Executive Director:

Jason Ortiz

Budget (2021):

Revenue: <$50,000
Expenses: <$50,000
Assets: <$50,000 1

References

  1. Students for Sensible Drug Policy Inc. Return of an Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990-N). 2021.

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP) is a chapter-based drug-legalization advocacy organization with affiliates in over 30 countries. 1 The SSDP network advocates for drug decriminalization locally, nationally, and internationally while arguing for the de-stigmatization of drug use, including for hard drugs like heroin, crack, fentanyl, and methamphetamine. 2

SSDP urges members to advocate for laws to legalize not only the possession, but also the use, distribution, sale, manufacturing, and transportation of presently controlled substances and calls on local and county governments to become sanctuary jurisdictions for drug use and the drug trade. 3

Founding and History

In 1997, students at Rochester Institute of Technology devoted to ending the War on Drugs formed the Rochester Cannabis Coalition. This coalition eventually evolved into Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which was officially founded on October 1, 1998. 4

SSDP is made up of local student chapters.  At its founding, SSDP was formed by students in chapters at five schools: Hampshire College, University of Wisconsin-Madison, George Washington University, American University, and Rochester Institute for Technology. 5

SSDP claims credit for contributing to the partial repeal of the Higher Education Act Aid Elimination Penalty in the early 2000s, a policy that disqualified those with drug convictions from receiving federal financial aid for post-secondary education. 6

In 2011, the United Nations granted SSDP official consultative status, a position that allowed SSDP to work with the UN’s committee on drug policy. 7

By 2017, SSDP had become an international affiliate organization, claiming to have chapters on every continent except Antarctica. 8

Chapters

Students for Sensible Drug Policy operates as a loose affiliation of ambassadors and chapters aligned in the common cause of drug criminalization. Those who wish to become an ambassador or form a chapter need only have an orientation call with the outreach team at SSDP and submit a planning document. Chapters are also required to hold regular meetings with the SSDP headquarters. 9 After formation, chapters and ambassadors are not required to pay dues to SSDP. 10

In the United States, notable schools with chapters include Yale University, 11 Harvard, 12 Columbia University, 13 Johns Hopkins University, 14 Georgetown University, 15 the University of Southern California,  and University of California, Berkely. 16

Activism

Students for Sensible Drug Policy advocates for drug decriminalization, including an end to the war on drugs and the decriminalization of marijuana and psychedelics. 17 According to SSDP, “the war on drugs is a war on us.” 18

During the 118th Congress, SSDP took a public stand on a number of proposed federal policies. For example, SSDP opposed the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act designed to curb fentanyl trafficking; urged President Joe Biden to remove marijuana from the controlled substance schedule; and opposed the POLICE Act, which it claimed “perpetuates racial inequality” by allowing aliens who assault law enforcement officers to be deported. 19

While SSDP claims its organization “neither encourages nor condemns drug use,” it nonetheless advocates members in its organization “challenge what they think they know about drugs and the people that use them,” not only for more common drugs like marijuana, but also hard drugs like heroin, crack, fentanyl, and methamphetamine. 20

SSDP provides resources to support its chapter organizations advocating for drug decriminalization, including educational materials, fliers, posters, icons, and more. 21 Also to influence college campuses, SSDP created an over 200 page long U.S. Campus Policy Gradeboook, grading individual American universities on whether they enact pro-drug policies such as refusing to sanction drug users, providing access to opioid overdose reversal drugs, or providing drug education information based on the principles of harm reduction. 22

The organization also provides model resolutions for local and county governments to decriminalize drugs. The resolution claims that “students and young people have been disproportionately targeted for arrest,” and proposes the elimination of municipal criminal codes allowing for the arrest or incarceration of anyone possession, using, distributing, selling, manufacturing, or transporting controlled substances. 23 Further, the proposed resolution would make local governments sanctuary cities for drug use by requiring that no city “department, agency, board, commission, officer, or employee—including without limitation, police department personnel—should use any city funds or resources to assist in the enforcement of laws imposing criminal penalties” for the possession, distribution, selling, planting, cultivating, manufacturing, and transporting of controlled substances. 24

Additionally, SSDP runs the North Carolina Youth Overdose Prevention Fellowship to train pro-drug decriminalization grassroots community organizers in North Carolina focused on nonwhites. 25

Funding

In 2016, Students for Sensible Drug Policy was listed as a grant recipient of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations. 26

People

The executive director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy is Jason Ortiz. Before becoming the executive director, Ortiz was a campaign manager from 2012-2020 for a variety of state and local political candidates from the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party, largely in Connecticut. 27 For example, in 2018 and 2020 Ortiz was the campaign manager for unsuccessful Connecticut State Senate Candidate Martha Marx from the Democratic and Working Families Parties. In 2016, Ortiz was the campaign manager for successful Democratic Connecticut House candidate Chris Soto. Outside of Connecticut, Ortiz managed the campaign for Sendolo Diaminah in the nonpartisan election for Durham North Carolina’s Board of Education. 28 Ortiz also currently works as the president of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, 29 a trade association for marijuana-related businesses owned by nonwhites. 30

The chair of the Board of Students for Sensible Drug Policy is Jeanne Porges, 31 a doctoral student at Adler University. 32 Beginning in March 2017, Porges worked as either and administrative judge or an election judge for the Cook County Government in Illinois where she was responsible for ballot management. Her professional profile on LinkedIn features an LGBTQ+ rainbow flag and a symbol of the black power movement. 33

Affiliated Organizations

Students for Sensible Drug Policy Foundation

Students for Sensible Drug Policy has an affiliated 501(c)(3) foundation that appears to operate as the main financial entity of the SSDP network. While according to tax documents SSDP receives less than $50,000 annually, 34 in 2020 SSDP Foundation reported receiving $560,602 in revenue with $460,714 in expenses while maintaining $262,563 in assets. From 2017 to 2020 the SSDP Foundation reported spending a total of $440,096 on nontaxable lobbying and $110,024 on nontaxable grassroots efforts. 35

Students for Sensible Drug Policy International

SSDP has an affiliate international organization located in Vienna, Austria, called Students for Sensible Drug Policy International. 36 SSDP International promotes youth engagement to change drug policies throughout the world through various trainings and initiatives, including the EU Drug Policy Training & Strategy Series, the United Nations Training Series, and the Psychedelic Pipeline, 37 a forum to connect students to professionals working on psychedelics. 38 SSDP International also produces a pro-drug podcast called the Sensible Drug Policy Show. 39

As of 2023, the executive director of SSDP International was Charity Monareng, a South African-based activist who also works on the board of the South African Network of People Who Use Drugs (SANPUD). 40

References

  1. “Chapter FAQS.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapter-faqs/.
  2. “Chapter FAQS.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapter-faqs/.
  3. “Model Resolution to Advance Sensible Drug Policy.” Google Docs. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uM9nBsoIWr5qpAMc62LRH38ye0nuOi8StD84lCVqfFU/edit
  4. “History.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/ssdp-history/.
  5. “History.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/ssdp-history/.
  6. “History.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/ssdp-history/.
  7. “History.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/ssdp-history/.
  8. “History.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/ssdp-history/.
  9. “Chapter FAQS.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapter-faqs/.
  10. “Chapter FAQS.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapter-faqs/.
  11. “Connecticut.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapters/northeast/connecticut/.
  12. “Massachusetts.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapters/northeast/massachusetts/.
  13. “New York.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapters/northeast/new-york/.
  14. “Maryland.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapters/mid-atlantic/maryland/.
  15. “District of Columbia.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapters/mid-atlantic/district-of-columbia/.
  16. “California.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapters/pacific/california/.
  17. “History.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/ssdp-history/.
  18. “Our Work.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/our-work/.
  19. “Model Resolution to Advance Sensible Drug Policy.” Google Docs. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uM9nBsoIWr5qpAMc62LRH38ye0nuOi8StD84lCVqfFU/edit
  20. “Chapter FAQS.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/chapter-faqs/.
  21. “Resources.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/resources/.
  22. “U.S. Campus Policy Gradebook.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/our-work/campus-policy-gradebook/.
  23. “Model Resolution to Advance Sensible Drug Policy.” Google Docs. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uM9nBsoIWr5qpAMc62LRH38ye0nuOi8StD84lCVqfFU/edit
  24. “Model Resolution to Advance Sensible Drug Policy.” Google Docs. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uM9nBsoIWr5qpAMc62LRH38ye0nuOi8StD84lCVqfFU/edit.
  25. “North Carolina Youth Overdose Prevention Fellowship.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/our-work/ncharmreductionfellowship/.
  26. Merrigan, Sarah. “In Drug Policy Debates, Youth Are Often Seen but Not Heard.” Open Society Foudnations. April 15, 2016. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/drug-policy-debates-youth-are-often-seen-not-heard.
  27. “Jason Ortiz.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-ortiz-a5672a236/.
  28. “Jason Ortiz.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-ortiz-a5672a236/.
  29. “Jason Ortiz ’08.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/team/jason-ortiz/.
  30. “MCBA: Minority Cannabis Business Association.” Minority Cannabis. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://minoritycannabis.org/.
  31. “Board of Directors.” SSDP. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://ssdp.org/about/board/.
  32. “Jeanne Porges.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-porges/.
  33. “Jeanne Porges.” LinkedIn. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanne-porges/.
  34. Students for Sensible Drug Policy Inc. Return of an Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990-N). 2021.
  35. [1] Students for Sensible Drug Policy Foundation. Return of an Organization Exempt From Income Tax (Form 990). 2020.
  36. “Students for Sensible Drug Policy International.” SSDP Intl. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.ssdp-intl.org/
  37. “SSDP – Projects.” SSDP Intl. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.ssdp-intl.org/projects.
  38. “Psychedelic Pipeline.” SSDP Intl. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.ssdp-intl.org/project/7/ssdp-psychedelic-pipeline.
  39. “Students for Sensible Drug Policy International.” SSDP Intl. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.ssdp-intl.org/.
  40. “About us.” SSDP Intl. Accessed July 24, 2023. https://www.ssdp-intl.org/about-us.
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Nonprofit Information

  • Accounting Period: June - May
  • Tax Exemption Received: August 1, 2001

  • Available Filings

    Period Form Type Total revenue Total functional expenses Total assets (EOY) Total liabilities (EOY) Unrelated business income? Total contributions Program service revenue Investment income Comp. of current officers, directors, etc. Form 990
    2020 Jun Form 990 $784,117 $633,500 $249,878 $99,671 N $767,967 $16,150 $0 $96,302 PDF
    2019 Jun Form 990 $683,919 $810,101 $95,367 $93,153 N $589,259 $90,910 $0 $92,228 PDF
    2018 Jun Form 990 $317,449 $414,280 $129,561 $9,613 N $277,725 $39,724 $0 $38,353 PDF
    2017 Dec Form 990 $762,058 $750,486 $233,187 $4,557 N $712,791 $29,101 $106 $80,763 PDF
    2016 Dec Form 990 $775,365 $923,403 $248,921 $31,863 N $732,855 $42,502 $8 $89,069 PDF
    2015 Dec Form 990 $606,756 $599,034 $337,291 $8,295 N $598,137 $8,607 $12 $107,265 PDF
    2014 Dec Form 990 $502,254 $475,651 $340,248 $18,974 N $463,420 $38,817 $17 $68,523 PDF
    2013 Dec Form 990 $514,480 $366,985 $356,969 $62,298 N $499,850 $13,890 $740 $76,931 PDF
    2012 Dec Form 990 $216,396 $489,894 $149,476 $2,348 N $214,383 $1,996 $17 $79,335 PDF
    2011 Dec Form 990 $724,733 $380,979 $423,865 $3,239 N $706,174 $18,545 $14 $84,904 PDF
    2010 Dec Form 990 $250,385 $377,556 $79,997 $3,125 N $226,495 $23,862 $28 $61,732 PDF

    Additional Filings (PDFs)

    Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP)

    1011 O STREET NW 1
    WASHINGTON, DC 20001-4229