About

Betsy Craft

I’m Betsy Craft — a Harm Reductionist, community-engaged researcher, peer support practitioner, and drug policy advocate based in Colorado. I work at the intersection of lived and living expertise and public health, partnering with people who use drugs, frontline organizers, academic researchers, and coalitions to advance evidence-based, anti-carceral drug policy.

Download my full CV (PDF)

Current positions

  • Community Engagement Specialist, Planning Partnerships and Community Health Promotion, Arapahoe County Public Health (2024–present) — spearheading countywide overdose prevention strategy, including FTIR point-of-care drug checking, an overdose fatality review pilot, and a participant-led advisory group inside the county’s syringe access program.
  • Community Engagement Consultant, Dr. Katherine LeMasters Lab, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (2023–present) — community-engaged qualitative research on mental health, substance use, and criminal legal involvement.
  • Founder & Principal, Craft Consulting LLC — community-engaged research, Harm Reduction program design, peer support workforce strategy, and lived-experience advisory facilitation for public health agencies, academic teams, and coalitions.
  • Policy Director, Colorado Drug Policy Coalition (2023–present).
  • Founder & Leader, Colorado Peer Policy Action Network (C2PAN) (2023–present) — statewide, peer-led coalition standardizing forensic peer support in Colorado jails.
  • Panel Member, American Society of Addiction Medicine Panel of People with Lived and Living Experience (Dec 2025–present) — contributing to the update of the national practice guideline for the treatment of opioid use disorder.
  • Community Advisor, Denver Opioid Abatement Council (June 2023–present) — mayoral appointment, two consecutive terms.

Areas of expertise

Community-led and participatory research · health equity · drug user health and overdose prevention · non-punitive drug policy · mass incarceration and re-entry · jail-based peer-led care · qualitative and arts-based research · Harm Reduction · community organizing · coalition-building · peer support · systems change · lived and living expertise leadership · peer-led street outreach implementation · FTIR drug checking · relationship-driven engagement models.

Education

  • Colorado State University, Global Campus, 2023 — Business Management and Organizational Leadership
  • Pikes Peak Community College, 2017 — General Studies & Business

People who use drugs are experts in their own lives. Policy that doesn’t start there isn’t policy — it’s punishment with paperwork.

My work has spanned legislative testimony, peer-led research, arts-based dissemination (photovoice, zines, graphic novels), participatory budgeting, jail visiting rooms, and city- and state-level advisory boards. Shift power, share resources, keep people alive.

If you’d like to collaborate on community-engaged research, policy advocacy, peer support program design, or Harm Reduction education — or to bring Craft Consulting in on a project — please get in touch.