From Arrest to Advocacy: Jason Ortiz’s Mission to End Cannabis Injustice – Stupid Dope
We are delighted to see former SSDP Executive Director, Jason Ortiz, was featured in Stupid Dope discussing his story. He was arrested at age 16 for cannabis possession during his junior year of high school, and became involved with SSDP at college, and which has led him to become an lifelong activist.
At the University of Connecticut, Ortiz joined Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), where he learned how personal experiences could become political power. “I realized I was only able to go to college because activists before me fought to amend the Higher Education Act. That small change meant people like me, arrested in high school, could still qualify for Pell Grants. That realization turned me into a lifelong policy advocate.”
Currently Jason is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the Last Prisoner Project, a cannabis reform nonprofit, and our partner for Cannabis Week of Unity that we hosted in D.C. in the Spring.
