Betty Aldworth serves as the Director of Communications & Post-Prohibition Strategy at MAPS. With the Communications team, Betty works to share MAPS’ story with our audiences and generate support for psychedelic research and reform through the media. Betty also works with colleagues and allies across the drug policy reform movement to Illustrate the promise of a post-prohibition world through inspiring public education opportunities.
Prior to joining MAPS in 2020, Betty was the Executive Director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy where she led and supported tens of thousands of students and young people united to build a more sensible future through reforming drug policies to be rooted in safety, justice, and education. Beginning in 2014, Betty led the organization through its most substantial growth period and in 2020 left the organization in its most stable and sustainable position in its 22-year history. Since 1999, Betty has specialized in community engagement, public relations, advocacy, and policy reform for nonprofit organizations including as spokesperson and advocacy director for the successful 2012 Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, the collaborative committee responsible for legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana for adults in Colorado. An activist and advocate since attending her first peace demonstration as a child, Betty organized her first action at 13 and learned her first hard lessons in coalition building when it was attended only by her mom. Betty fights to end the drug war to interrupt mass incarceration, reengage citizens in the political process, and build racial and economic justice. She serves as an advisor to DanceSafe and StoptheDrugWar.org and as the Treasurer of the Boards of Directors for the Marijuana Policy Project & MPP Foundation.