Michael, CEO and founder of Steered Straight, has gone from addict and inmate to the number-one booked school presenter in the US.
But enough formalities. Michael has no time to waste. He plunges right in.
At the time of his Scientology TV Voices for Humanity episode just over six years ago, there were over 22 million drug addicts in America. That number has since more than doubled to over 48 million. At the time of the episode, 100 Americans were dying of drug overdoses each day. Now, that figure has swelled to over 220 deaths per day from opioid-related drug overdoses alone.
“Cancer is exploding among young people and vaping causes cancer.”
But, as Michael points out, overdosing isn’t the only problem when it comes to drug abuse. “For instance, with alcohol,” he tells Freedom, “it’s not just alcohol poisoning, it’s the person who’s driving drunk—the person that they hurt and hit is dead.”
Just as dead as if he was the one ODing on alcohol.
“Then you’ve got cirrhosis of the liver and liver disease and kidney disease. So there’s other ways to die and to suffer from drugs. It’s not just an overdose.”
In 2018, Michael saw the growth of vaping among young people. Anything can be ingested from vaping, he says. He predicted at the time (rightly, unfortunately) that vaping would become the number-one method to ingest THC and marijuana, as well as nicotine (far more than cigarettes), psychedelics like mushrooms and kratom, a dangerously addictive drug.
And the drugs don’t take a lot of work to get. A high school in Covington, Kentucky, for example, is across the street from a vape shop, another two vape shops are around the corner and there are two more within half a mile. That’s five vape shops selling to kids, all within walking distance from the school.
Coincidence? Not.
And it’s not just vape shops. Michael points out that you can also get your fix from gas stations and convenience stores and shops of all kinds. “I was just in Orlando. They’re selling marijuana products at souvenir stores. So you can buy a Disney hoodie and you can get your THC gummies and vape at the same place.”
“We’re three years deep into a catastrophe,” he says. “Cancer is exploding among young people and vaping causes cancer.”
To stem the tide of substance abuse, Michael has spoken at schools, prisons, treatment centers and to anyone who will listen in all 50 states. And when he speaks, people do listen. “They’ve met me. They know I’m real. I’m not sugarcoating it,” he says. Michael DeLeon doesn’t sugarcoat a thing. He has been there, having spent 12 years in state prison and halfway houses for the gang-related murder of his own mother.
Released from jail, he dedicated his life to keeping as many people away from drugs as he could. “I knew I wanted to go talk to kids, and I wanted to talk to high school and college students, and I wanted to talk to people in prison and give them the hope that they could turn their lives around,” he said. “My passion met my purpose.”
Minor glitch: No one wanted an ex-convict in their school.
“Can I personally make the entire world drug-free? I don’t think so. But can I make a lot of people’s worlds drug-free? Yeah, I sure can.”
So Michael went back to college to become a licensed drug counselor. But counseling two dozen youth addicts would barely put a dent in a problem involving millions. He needed to make more of an impact than that, so he went to Camden, New Jersey—a major heroin traffic spot—and, over the next 11 months, interviewed 137 people on-camera—drug users, kids, gang members and dealers. The result was the documentary Kids Are Dying, which was honored as the official selection of the 2015 REEL Recovery Film Festival.
More documentaries followed, but Michael still wasn’t achieving the broad results he was after. The hundreds of people the films brought him in contact with whose lives centered around—and were ruined by—drugs acted as a wake-up call. “I thought I knew how bad it was,” he says. “I had no clue how bad it was. My films are great, but it’s not enough. I’ve got to put educational materials in kids’ hands.”
That’s when the epiphany happened. Michael googled “drugs are a lie,” and “This video popped up on my feed, and I watched it,” he told Freedom, “and man, I could almost cry. I’m like, ‘This is it! This is it! The Truth About Drugs!’ I looked at their website and their set-up and their materials and I said, ‘I’m not going to replicate what’s been done here.’”
From that point on, America’s drug crisis faced a formidable foe: Michael DeLeon, armed with his passion and, now, educational materials from the Foundation for a Drug-Free World.
“We’re about to cross 18 million Drug-Free World booklets in seven years.” And as far as talks and public appearances: “Last year was my record. Seven hundred eight schools in one year and 140 prisons. But this year, I beat that: I’ve already broken 800 schools and 158 prisons in 2024. All in person.”
In the past four years, over 9,000 kids have voluntarily handed Michael their vapes. “It’s unbelievable,” he says.
But even with the prodigious inroads he makes wherever he goes, there are still the grisly statistics that keep rising each year and the constant morphing of old methods into new methods of mass distribution of deadly substances. How does he stay upbeat in the face of the Herculean task he’s set for himself? It’s called Drug-Free World, after all. Does Michael really believe he can achieve that star-high goal?
“I don’t think everybody in the world is going to treat everybody else the way they want to be treated, but it’s still the golden rule, so we still try to live that way, right? But this kid over here, his world’s drug-free. And this kid over here, her world’s drug-free. And this family over here, their world’s drug-free. And guess what? My world’s drug-free. So can I personally make the entire world drug-free? I don’t think so. But can I make a lot of people’s worlds drug-free? Yeah, I sure can. And that’s what I’m doing.”
But right this second, Michael’s got a three-plus hour drive to get to the hotel and then another hour to get to the school district. He needs to shower, eat, do a bunch of videos on the computer, then write a blog about the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control, which will take him until midnight or later. Then sleep, wake up at 4 a.m., exercise, shower, eat and leave for his next school by 5:45. Then another three-hour drive to the next place and so on.
He really needs an assistant who can survive those crazy hours…
