Welcome Kat Murti, Students for Sensible Drug Policy’s New Executive Director

Meet SSDP's new Executive Director Kat Murti!

Category: Blog/News/Press Releases | staff, team | October 14, 2023 By Kat Murti Comments are Off

This entry has been published on October 14, 2023 and may be out of date.

The nation’s largest youth-led drug policy reform organization has a new leader!

SSDP’s youth-led Board of Directors is excited to announce that they have selected a new Executive Director: longtime SSDPer Kat Murti.

Kat is a libertarian, feminist, and activist, dedicated to making the world a better, freer place, one day at a time.

“I am immensely grateful to welcome Kat Murti as the new Executive Director of SSDP. Kat is such an inspirational leader who is the perfect fit for this position. Kat’s historical knowledge is unprecedented and I’m looking forward to learning and growing alongside her!” said Vice Chair Karley Snyder ‘18.

Kat Murti ‘09 began her journey with SSDP in January 2009, when she joined the UC Berkeley chapter (CalSSDP). Just a couple months later, she was unanimously voted chapter president, and shortly thereafter she began interning at what was then SSDP’s San Francisco-based headquarters.

Over the years, Kat has worn many different SSDP hats, including co-coordinating SSDP’s AMPLIFY Project, which connected touring bands with the drug policy reform movement, helping conceive SSDP’s employment pipelines (and starting the SSDP Jobs and Opportunities Facebook group), and chairing SSDP’s committee dedicated to diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality for over 8 years.

Kat served as an appointed director on SSDP’s Board of Directors for over a decade, most recently as Treasurer of the Board. She previously was a Trustee on the (now-defunct) Board of Trustees. Kat was named an Alumni All Star in December of 2010, a Spotlighted Alum in January of 2012, and the 2016 A. Kathryn Parker Outstanding Alumnus in Service to SSDP, in addition to receiving SSDP’s Randy Hencken Saving Our Asses Award in 2018.

“Kat Murti has been a valuable SSDPer since 2008 and as I have gotten to know her, I have experienced her immense passion for drug policy and I have had the pleasure of learning from her strong leadership while she served as an appointed director on SSDP’s board. It is my pleasure to continue working with Kat as she accepts the role of SSDP’s Executive Director and leads SSDP in our continued endeavors to end the War on Drugs,” said Board Chairperson Jeanne Porges ‘20.

Outside of her work with SSDP, Kat has been a passionate advocate of human liberty who is dedicated to ending the War on Drugs.

She is the co-founder and executive director of Feminists for Liberty, an anti-statist and anti-sexist organization that is uplifting libertarian feminist voices, promoting gender equality without abandoning classically liberal ideas, and changing the narrative about both feminism and libertarianism, as well as co-leader of the D.C. chapter of the Ladies of Liberty Alliance (LOLA) and formerly a communications consultant for the international organization.

Kat serves on the board of PublicSquare.net, an independent, non-partisan webzine that aims to encourage stimulating debate on the political, legal, religious, and social issues of the day, as well as the advisory board of the White Coat Waste Project, a taxpayer watchdog group focused on ending government funding for animal experimentation.

Kat first became involved with drug policy in 2007 when she joined the Dallas-Fort Worth chapter of NORML. She served as Bay Area Regional Director of the Proposition 19 campaign to legalize adult recreational cannabis (she appears extensively in the award-winning independent film American Pot Story: Oaksterdam), and has worked at the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, and, briefly, in cannabis business law.

For over a decade, Kat oversaw digital strategy at the Cato Institute, spreading the message of human liberty online. Prior to that role, she worked on the web team at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She is an alumni of the Koch Internship Program, Koch Associate Program, and the Koch Summer Fellowship Program.

“I met Kat early in my SSDP career in 2010 and she has shown a consistent dedication to ending the war on drugs. Having worked closely with her on the board these past few years, I am extremely excited and proud to welcome her as SSDPs newest Executive Director,” said Treasurer Axel Bilbao ’08.

Kat was recognized as one of the Red Alert Politics 30 Under 30 in 2018, as well as one of the 40 under 40 Outstanding BIPOC Leaders in Drug Policy in 2021. She was named LOLA of the Month in May 2016 and August 2020.

Kat earned her B.A. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, and is a graduate of Oaksterdam University. She grew up between North Texas and South India, and now lives in the Washington, D.C. area with her husband and two children.

“SSDP channeled my passion for human liberty and gave me the tools and network I needed, empowering me to become the activist I am today. I am so excited for the opportunity to lead SSDP into the next era of youth organizing to END the War on Drugs,” said Kat.