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September 2026
- Sep 2Policy & Funding
Congress Just Bought Delta-8 Another 29 Days. Nobody Selling It Thinks That's Enough.
The House just delayed the federal ban on intoxicating hemp products to December 11. Here's what the new hemp definition actually does, and what the newest cannabinoid research says about risk.
- Sep 2Policy & Funding
SAMHSA Announced $77 Million This Week. The Outlet That Gave Harm Reduction Its Voice Couldn't Survive on Less.
SAMHSA announced $77 million in new grants this week. Three weeks earlier, the harm reduction outlet Filter announced it couldn't survive its own funding landscape. The gap between those two stories is the story.
- Sep 1Policy & Funding
Congress Called Xylazine a Public Health Threat in March. It Hasn't Voted Since.
The bipartisan Combating Illicit Xylazine Act advanced 19-3 in March. It still hasn't reached a Senate floor vote, and the drug supply has already started moving past the substance it targets.
- Sep 1Technology & Innovation
Arizona Built a Chatbot to Solve the Problem Rize Was Founded to Solve
AHCCCS, Google Public Sector, and Syntasa launched a Gemini-powered chatbot connecting Arizonans to opioid treatment. It's reached 20,000+ people in 120+ cities — and it's a signal about where this fight is heading.
- Sep 1Harm Reduction
The Bar Stamped 'Xanax' Might Be a Drug the DEA Only Banned Six Months Ago
Bromazolam-laced counterfeit Xanax is tied to over a dozen deaths in one federal case alone. The DEA banned it in March. Here's why that's not the same as it going away — and what withdrawal from it actually requires.
- Sep 1Policy & Funding
The FDA Rejected MDMA Therapy Because It Couldn't Trust the Data. The New Application Doesn't Have New Data.
Resilient Pharmaceuticals resubmitted MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD to the FDA without running the new efficacy trial the 2024 rejection seemed to demand. Here's what changed, what didn't, and who's waiting.
August 2026
- Aug 31Science & Medicine
Banning Xylazine Didn't Shrink the Tranquilizer Supply. It Just Renamed the Problem Medetomidine.
A peer-reviewed study of nearly 114,000 drug-checking reports finds states that scheduled xylazine as a controlled substance saw a measurable rise in medetomidine detections — evidence that scheduling one adulterant pushes the illicit supply toward its more dangerous replacement.
- Aug 31Science & Medicine
The Same Drug Class Behind Ozempic Is Now the Most Promising Alcohol Medication in 20 Years
GLP-1 drugs — the same drug class as Ozempic and Wegovy — are now in four separate trials for alcohol use disorder, the first genuinely new pharmacological approach to the disease in nearly two decades. The science is moving faster than the insurance system that would need to pay for it.
- Aug 31Lived Experience & Community
Harm Reduction Was Built for Opioids. If You Use Meth, You Already Know It Shows.
A first-person Filter essay on years of daily meth use, paired with new Yale craving research, makes the case that harm reduction services built for opioid users still don't fit stimulant users — and that the gap is measurable, not just felt.
- Aug 31Arizona Watch
Arizona Kept Native Patients Using Drugs to Keep the Medicaid Checks Coming. The Arrests Are Still Happening.
Arizona's sober-living-home Medicaid fraud scandal, which targeted Native American patients and kept them using drugs to sustain fraudulent billing, has produced 42 more arrests and roughly $2.8 billion in identified fraud since 2021 — with about 200 cases still under investigation.
- Aug 31Treatment & Recovery
Rural ERs Still Aren't Starting Addiction Medication. Six Years of Data Just Proved It.
A CDC report published August 27 shows rural emergency departments started buprenorphine in overdose patients at a third the rate of urban EDs, a gap that hasn't moved since 2019 — a fixable protocol problem hiding inside a national success story.
- Aug 31Harm Reduction
SAMHSA Killed Test-Strip Funding on the One Day We're Supposed to Count the Dead
SAMHSA's April letter banning federal harm-reduction dollars from test strips is now closing drug-checking programs nationwide — on the same week HHS rolled out a faith-based 'treatment-first' toolkit and the CDC touted a 12% drop in overdose deaths. The strips didn't cause the decline. They may be part of why it's happening.
- Aug 30Harm Reduction
The Best Treatment for Stimulant Addiction Pays You to Stay Clean. For Forty Years, We Refused to Try It.
Contingency management pays people for evidence of not using stimulants, and a new cohort study links it to lower mortality. Medicaid coverage is finally spreading — decades after the evidence arrived.
- Aug 30Arizona Watch
The Sacklers' Money Is Finally Landing in Arizona. The Fight Over It Is Just Starting.
Arizona's opioid settlement total climbs past $1.19 billion as the Purdue/Sackler agreement takes legal effect — with most funds still to be distributed over the next three years.
- Aug 30Lived Experience & Community
Yale Just Proved Craving Doesn't Cloud Your Judgment. It Rewrites It.
A Yale study in Nature Mental Health shows craving actively reshapes decision-making in the moment, not just makes relapse tempting — reframing what willpower can and can't do.
- Aug 30Treatment & Recovery
Washington Built the Playbook That Cut Overdose Deaths. It Just Told States to Stop Using It.
HHS just told cities to drop harm reduction for a 'Treatment First' model. The fentanyl test strips and syringe programs it's defunding are the same tools credited with the overdose decline it's celebrating.
- Aug 29Technology & Innovation
Brave Died. The Tech It Proved Didn't.
Canada's Brave app proved remote overdose supervision works, then shut down anyway. What that means for the predictive relapse-risk tools now being built to replace it.
- Aug 29Harm Reduction
SAMHSA Had to Write a Letter Confirming Naloxone Isn't 'Harm Reduction' — to Keep It Funded
SAMHSA's July 29 Dear Colleague letter excludes naloxone from the 'harm reduction activity' classification, insulating overdose-reversal funding from a politically contested label.
- Aug 29The Crisis, By the Numbers
Cocaine Isn't Killing People Anymore. Fentanyl Riding Inside It Is
CDC data shows 79% of cocaine overdose deaths co-involve an opioid, almost always fentanyl. Harm reduction still treats cocaine as an opioid-free drug.
- Aug 29Science & Medicine
The Cannabis Red Flag Isn't How Often. It's How Many Ways.
A new Addictive Behaviors study finds cannabis users who mix routes — smoking, vaping, edibles, dabbing — are nearly 3x more likely to use daily or meet criteria for cannabis use disorder. Here's the screening question providers should be asking.
- Aug 29Lived Experience & Community
Nobody Gets Fired for Taking Blood Pressure Meds. Suboxone Patients Aren't So Lucky.
Buprenorphine and methadone patients hide their treatment from employers and even from other people in recovery. The research says that fear is rational — and it's costing lives.
- Aug 29Arizona Watch
Arizona Just Paid Five Sheriffs $2 Million Each to Build What Jail Should Never Have Made Necessary
Arizona AG Kris Mayes gave five county sheriffs $2 million each in opioid settlement money for reentry programs. A look at what that money actually buys, who's watching it, and what it means if you're the one walking out of county.
- Aug 28Harm Reduction
Bend Police Are Now Giving Six Doses of Narcan to Revive One Person. The Supply Changed Under Them.
Bend, Oregon police now routinely need 2-6 doses of naloxone to revive an overdose, as street fentanyl is increasingly cut with methamphetamine and other non-opioid adulterants Narcan can't reverse.
- Aug 28Policy & Funding
The Government's Own Lawyers Just Said Cannabis Can't Stay in Schedule I. The Judge Still Hasn't Ruled.
DEA released the complete transcript of its cannabis rescheduling hearing, in which government attorneys argued marijuana can no longer remain in Schedule I. Here's what's actually changed, and what hasn't.