Michael Gray is the CEO of Actus Analytical, Inc., which develops spectroscopy solutions for public safety compliance, illicit drug detection, agricultural productivity and other applications. Nancy Gray has spent the bulk of her adult life – and the Gray’s 32 years of marriage – dedicated to the loving care of her family and has now joined with Michael in support of Actus Analytical.
The Grays are the parents of Declan Gray, 25, and Amanda Gray, who was killed by a poisoning of straight Fentanyl on January 11, 2018 at the age of 24. The Gray family battled with acute mental illness throughout Amanda’s life, and her intermittent substance abuse in the last 2 years before her passing.
Michael and Nancy founded The Actus Foundation, a 501©(3) charitable organization, in 2018. The Foundation advocates treating the entirety of the illicit drug death epidemic in America, including the largely forgotten constituency of intermittent users. Most notable are the acutely mentally ill, who abuse opioids or other drugs (prescription and non-prescription) in a search for symptom relief from tragically under-treated diseases.
The introduction of Synthetic Opioid Chemicals (a.k.a. Fentanyl) into the illicit drug supply stream is nothing less than a paradigm shift1 to the decades-long “Opioid Crisis” in the USA. This means all aspects of illicit drug use must be considered to save lives, since any single instance of illicit opioid use may lead to death. The time to see the threat as related only to “addicts” and “overdose” is long past; indeed, it is the old paradigm.
Michael is a popular speaker, offering unique analyses and suggestions for creative solutions to a new problem, i.e., an old problem with a recently altered paradigm1. Michael walks participants through the murky world of the drug problem clarifying the threat and dispelling myths. He is advisor to numerous Congressional Members and a close partner to the Chairs and Ranking Members of key committees. He has testified before Congress and has three times been a guest of the White House. The Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (the “Drug Czar) and its Director, Mr. James W. Carroll, is a close partner.
The Actus Foundation also advocates for the mentally ill, striving to deliver the message that mental illness is a disease the entire family suffers, and suffers in isolation; there are no well-worn paths to solutions available to those in chronic states of mental illness, as there are for medical patients. For all our success in medical science – diagnostic practices, treatment/care and patient advocacy – our nation has left behavioral science in the stone age. Our practice of psychiatric care – diagnostic practices, treatment/care and patient advocacy – is the ugly stepchild hidden in the attic as the country proudly displays her medical science wonders to the world.