Chad Sabora is a leading voice in harm reduction and drug policy reform, integrating lived experience with legal and behavioral science training. He holds degrees in psychology and political science, a law degree and previously served as a prosecuting attorney in Chicago. For more than a decade, he has worked across law, health care, and community practice to modernize the response to drug use. In Missouri, Illinois, and Washington, DC, he helped write, advocate for, and pass reforms including overdose Good Samaritan protections, first responder and third-party naloxone access, and safeguards that prevent the criminal justice system from interfering with evidence-based medications for opioid use disorder, including methadone and buprenorphine.

He served on SAMHSA’s harm reduction stakeholder group that authored the federal Harm Reduction Framework. He has advised the Office of Drug Control Policy for the White House on harm reduction and recovery strategy and served as a subject matter expert to the National Council for Mental Wellbeing and to HHS’s Equity Technical Assistance Center. He was a senior advisor to Faces & Voices of Recovery and collaborated with NIDA on work to improve outcomes for people involved in the criminal justice system.

His work has been featured on the front page of the New York Times and by CNN, MSNBC and NBC News, where he was the focus of an Emmy Award winning segment. He received Drug Policy Alliance’s Robert C. Randall Award, has delivered TED Talks on the history of United States drug policy and co-authored peer reviewed research on a hybrid recovery community center model that recognizes recovery when people adopt safer use practices.