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876 stories, newest first.
September 2026
- Sep 20Policy & Funding
DEA's 7-OH Ban Gets the Target Right. Kratom Users Are Still in the Blast Radius.
DEA's temporary Schedule I ban on synthetic 7-OH derivatives took effect Aug. 26, but the harder question — where trace kratom leaf ends and a concentrated opioid product begins — is still unresolved after a Sept. 10 comment deadline millions of self-treating users are watching.
- Sep 20Treatment & Recovery
The Only Treatment That Works for Cocaine Just Got a 10x Raise. Almost Nobody Can Cash It In.
There's still no FDA-approved medication for cocaine use disorder. SAMHSA just raised what programs can pay people to stay negative from $75 to $750 a year — but only five states have found a way to fund it.
- Sep 20Technology & Innovation
The Best Treatment for Meth and Opioids Is a Gift Card. Silicon Valley Would Rather Sell You a Watch.
SAMHSA raised the contingency management incentive cap from $75 to $750. Venture capital is still funding relapse-prediction wearables and AI chatbots with far less evidence behind them — and a surveillance problem baked in.
- Sep 19Policy & Funding
The DEA Asked for a Psilocybin Review Three Years Ago. It's Still Sitting There.
Dr. Sunil Aggarwal's petition to move psilocybin from Schedule I to Schedule II has been under DOJ review since August 2025. In April, DOJ rescheduled marijuana. Psilocybin wasn't included, and the reason why is more political than scientific.
- Sep 19Lived Experience & Community
Brad Pitt Started Drinking Again. The Internet's Reaction Says More Than His Wine Glass Does.
Brad Pitt told Esquire he's drinking again after seven sober years. Alcohol use disorder rates have actually fallen from 10.6% to 8.9% of Americans — but the argument over what counts as 'still in recovery' is where the real story is.
- Sep 19Harm Reduction
Philadelphia's Mayor Killed Needle Funding. The Syringes Being Collected Just Cratered Too.
Philadelphia cut nearly $1 million from Prevention Point's syringe exchange. Distribution has collapsed from 8.8 million syringes to 1.7 million in three years — and Narcan training is up 61% at the same time, which tells you exactly what's filling the gap.
- Sep 19Treatment & Recovery
There's No Pill for Meth. Here's What Actually Moves the Needle.
Methamphetamine use disorder still has zero FDA-approved medications. A 2026 trial of a $4-a-month antidepressant found something real — and a Kentucky recovery story shows what craving actually feels like from inside it.
- Sep 19Arizona Watch
Arizona Built a Medicaid Plan to Protect Native Families. Predators Turned It Into a Business Model.
AHCCCS has suspended 300 behavioral-health providers and named 11,000 victims in a sober-living fraud scheme that may have cost $2 billion. Two more clinics went down September 2. The people it was built to protect are still the ones paying for it.
- Sep 18Harm Reduction
Banning Xylazine Didn't Reduce It. It Just Handed the Drug Supply Something Worse.
A quasi-experimental medRxiv study of state xylazine scheduling laws found no significant reduction in xylazine detections and a rise in the unscheduled, more potent adulterant medetomidine.
- Sep 18Treatment & Recovery
Meth and Cocaine Have One Proven Treatment. Most Medicaid Plans Still Won't Pay For It.
Federal incentive caps for contingency management rose tenfold in 2025, and more state Medicaid programs are adopting it as standard care in 2026 — but most providers still aren't billing for the only stimulant-use-disorder treatment with strong evidence behind it.
- Sep 18Harm Reduction
The FDA Spent a Decade Fighting Flavored Vapes. It Just Quietly Switched Sides.
The FDA has authorized 48 e-cigarette products and 43 nicotine pouch products, including flavored options — a shift from a decade of flavor bans that critics say puts youth vaping risk back on the table.
- Sep 18Science & Medicine
The Weight-Loss Drug Everyone's Talking About Might Also Be the Best Alcohol Medication Nobody's Prescribing
GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide keep showing up in alcohol-use-disorder research, but the three medications already approved for AUD are barely prescribed — a gap worth naming before we get excited about a new one.
- Sep 18The Crisis, By the Numbers
Ohio Already Survived One Carfentanil Wave. The White House Just Warned the Whole Country a Second One Is Here.
ONDCP's new drug threat notice on carfentanil, fluorofentanyl, and methylfentanyl echoes a 2016 Ohio carfentanil wave that killed hundreds before fading — and public health data suggests it's already resurging nationally.
- Sep 18Harm Reduction
The DEA Tried to Ban Kratom Once. Users Beat It Back. This Time, It's Betting They're Too Sick to Fight.
The DEA's temporary Schedule I order for concentrated 7-OH kratom extracts echoes the agency's 2016 kratom ban attempt — but this time the users most affected may be too physically dependent to fight back the way the last generation did.
- Sep 17Arizona Watch
Arizona's New Naloxone Isn't a Gift — It's a Price Pharma Set for Itself
Arizona is set to receive over 40,000 units of settlement naloxone from Hikma and Amneal starting September 2026 — but Filter's reporting shows the in-kind deals value the drug far above what manufacturers actually charge.
- Sep 17The Crisis, By the Numbers
The Overdose Toolkit We Built Doesn't Cover the Drugs Now Filling the Gap
CDC data shows overdose deaths involving stimulants alone kept rising through 2024 even as the opioid-driven death toll collapsed — and there's no naloxone equivalent for a pure stimulant overdose.
- Sep 17Lived Experience & Community
Craving, Not Willpower, Is What Actually Predicts Relapse
Craving predicts relapse better than use history or demographics, research shows. Here's what withdrawal craving and cue-induced craving actually feel like, in plain terms.
- Sep 17Treatment & Recovery
The Ban Landed. Tennessee Shows What Happens Next.
Since bans on 7-OH and kratom took hold across several states, treatment centers report a 4-to-1 ratio of withdrawal patients over fentanyl cases. Here's what's actually happening to people cut off from gas-station opioid-adjacent supplements.
- Sep 17Technology & Innovation
Washington Keeps Rescuing Telehealth Bupe at the Last Minute. That's Not a Policy.
The DEA extended telehealth buprenorphine rules for a fourth time, through Dec. 31, 2026. A look at why a six-year 'temporary' fix keeps outliving Congress — and what's permanent underneath it.
- Sep 16Treatment & Recovery
The Treatment System Never Learned to Ask About Poppers
Inhalants are the most neglected substance class in addiction care, and poppers — still tangled in a debunked 1980s AIDS myth RFK Jr. just revived — show exactly what that neglect costs.
- Sep 16Treatment & Recovery
A New Psilocybin Trial Won't Save Anyone This Year — Contingency Management Already Could
Carilion Clinic just landed NIDA funding to study psychedelics for cocaine addiction. The treatment already shown to cut mortality 41% is still capped by old habits, not evidence.
- Sep 16Lived Experience & Community
Norway's Heroin Program Isn't a Cure — It's the Ceasefire That Makes Recovery Possible
A four-year Norwegian evaluation shows supervised heroin doses aren't the finish line — they're what buys the sickest patients enough stability to get there.
- Sep 16Policy & Funding
Washington Is Sprinting to Approve Psychedelics. It Left the VA at the Starting Line.
A record FDA hearing this week showed how fast federal psychedelic policy is moving. Nearly five million veterans who already use these drugs still don't know if telling their doctor could cost them their benefits.
- Sep 15Science & Medicine
Xylazine Wound Care Has Been Guessing — Two Baltimore Studies Just Asked the Patients Instead
A 315-person survey found 4 in 10 people who inject drugs in Baltimore have had a xylazine wound. A companion study asked them why — and pointed straight at gaps in clinician training.