Axel Bilbao ’08

Axel Bilbao ’08 was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina and lived there until he was 7 when he moved to the United States. He has lived experience as a person in recovery from addiction as well as bipolar disorder, and applied this in his direct service work. His start in drug policy was leading a NORML chapter at UCF and working on a medicinal cannabis amendment in Florida before getting involved with SSDP. Later, he went on to bring harm reduction efforts to Florida in 2013 by starting a harm reduction program bringing life saving Naloxone and sterile use supplies to people who use drugs. Most recently he worked on the campaign to legalize Syringe exchanges throughout Florida, the Infectious Disease Eliminations Act.