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Arizona Watch

AHCCCS, ADHS, Maricopa, state legislation, settlement spending.

Arizona Is Suing the Opioid Middlemen. Its Own Prisons Spent $50.9 Million of the Last Settlement on Something Else.

AG Kris Mayes went after Express Scripts and Optum on October 1. The state's auditor says the prior settlement money was already leaking.

Arizona sued Express Scripts and Optum over opioid prescribing. Meanwhile an audit says $50.9M of settlement money went to prison hepatitis C care. Where Arizona's opioid money should go.

Oct 212 minRead

More in Arizona Watch

78 total in this section

02Arizona WatchOct 19

Arizona's Cocaine Deaths Rose Nearly 70%. The Treatment That Works Is a Gift Card.

Arizona's stimulant deaths are climbing while overdose deaths fall nationally. The one treatment with proof behind it for meth and cocaine is a gift card, and a new Denver trial shows exactly where it falls short.

03Arizona WatchOct 3

Overdose Deaths Fell Nationwide in 2025. Arizona Went the Other Way.

Overdose deaths fell about 14% nationally in 2025 but rose roughly 18% in Arizona, with fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine all up. What that means for naloxone, intake and settlement spending.

04Arizona WatchSep 26

Arizona's September Naloxone Shipments Help, But They're Sized for a Crisis That's Shrinking Everywhere Except Here

Arizona is receiving 6,599 units of naloxone from Hikma and the first installment of a 33,714-unit Amneal shipment this September, under national opioid settlement deals. It's not enough given the state's rising overdose death toll.

05Arizona Watch

Earlier in Arizona Watch

Every piece in this section, most recent first.

Arizona Watch

Arizona Is Suing the Opioid Middlemen. Its Own Prisons Spent $50.9 Million of the Last Settlement on Something Else.

More in Arizona Watch

Arizona's Cocaine Deaths Rose Nearly 70%. The Treatment That Works Is a Gift Card.

Overdose Deaths Fell Nationwide in 2025. Arizona Went the Other Way.

Arizona's September Naloxone Shipments Help, But They're Sized for a Crisis That's Shrinking Everywhere Except Here

Arizona Quietly Stopped Fighting Fentanyl. It's Chasing Landscapers Instead.

Arizona's Settlement Naloxone Ships This Month. It Needs to Reach the Shelter, Not Just the Clinic.

Arizona's Medicaid Fraud Isn't Over — It's Just Better Hidden, and Tribes Want the Law Rewritten

Earlier in Arizona Watch

Arizona's Sober-Living Fraud Crackdown Caught 140 Predators — and Now Threatens the Beds Survivors Still Need

Arizona Built a Medicaid Plan to Protect Native Families. Predators Turned It Into a Business Model.

Arizona's New Naloxone Isn't a Gift — It's a Price Pharma Set for Itself

Overdose Deaths Are Falling Everywhere in America Except Arizona — and Its Own Settlement Money Is Stuck in Court

Banning Three Named Chemicals Won't Close the Loophole Selling Opioids as Kratom

Arizona Knew About the Sober-Home Fraud in 2019. Its Fix Arrives Tomorrow — $2.8 Billion Late.

Arizona's $1.2 Billion Opioid Settlement Finally Turns Into Naloxone This Month

40,000 Doses of Naloxone Are Landing in Arizona This Month. Almost Nobody Outside County Health Will Know.

Arizona Kept Native Patients Using Drugs to Keep the Medicaid Checks Coming. The Arrests Are Still Happening.

The Sacklers' Money Is Finally Landing in Arizona. The Fight Over It Is Just Starting.

Arizona Just Paid Five Sheriffs $2 Million Each to Build What Jail Should Never Have Made Necessary

AHCCCS's New AI Locator Finds a Provider Faster. It Can't Find You an Open Bed.

Arizona Just Put Settlement Money Behind the Naloxone Gap Washington Keeps Threatening

Arizona's Heat Isn't Background to the Overdose Crisis. It's Part of the Mechanism.

Overdose Deaths Are Falling Everywhere in America Except Arizona

Arizona Is Winning the Opioid Fight It Built and Losing the Meth-and-Heat Crisis It Didn't

Maricopa County Has Collected $97 Million in Opioid Settlement Cash. Jails Are Where It's Actually Changing Intake.

Arizona Built an AI Tool to Answer the Question a Crisis Doesn't Leave Time to Google Properly

Arizona's Heat Deaths Aren't a Weather Story. They're a Meth Story With the AC Turned Off.

Arizona's Drug Supply Is Turning Into a Guessing Game. Washington Just Took Away the Answer Key.

Arizona's Overdose Rate Just Hit Double the National Average. Its Own Audit Says $50.9 Million of Settlement Money Went Somewhere Else.

Arizona's Overdose Rate Is Twice the National Average. The One Number Going the Right Direction Is Getting Buried.

Arizona Got Its Billion-Dollar Settlement. The Overdose Rate Set a Record Anyway.

Arizona's Opioid Settlement Money Went to Prison Healthcare. Nobody Wrote Down Why.

America's Overdose Deaths Are Finally Falling. Arizona's Are Climbing — and Two Federal Rules Land This Week That Make It Worse

Arizona's Overdose Rate Just Hit an All-Time High. Also, the Latest Data Say It's Declining. Both Reports Are Real.

The Rest of the Country's Overdose Deaths Are Falling. Arizona's Aren't. Naloxone Is Doing the Work the Numbers Don't Show.

Arizona's Overdose Deaths Are Still Rising. The Slowdown Is the Story.

Arizona Just Opened a $1.5M Naloxone Grant for Rural Counties. The Application Window Is Eleven Weeks.

Arizona Has $1.2 Billion for Opioid Recovery and No Law Letting Pharmacists Prescribe the Medication

Arizona Is Routing Opioid Settlement Money Through Sheriff's Offices. That's Either the Smart Play or the Wrong One, Depending on What Happens After Release.

In Phoenix, Meth Doesn't Cause Heatstroke — It Hides It. That's Why July Is the Deadliest Month.

Arizona's Overdose Deaths Went Up. The Vending Machine That Fights Them Is Empty.

Arizona's Health Department Says Overdoses Are Down More Than Half. The CDC Says Arizona Is One of Three States Where They're Not.

Phoenix's Deadliest Month Isn't Just Heat — It's Heat and Meth, Together

Arizona's Overdose Deaths Are Climbing While the Rest of the Country's Are Falling. The Crackdown That Was Supposed to Help Is Part of Why.

The Sheriff Took Out the Scanners. Five Days Later, Anahi Rubio Was Dead.

Arizona Just Seized 4 Million Fentanyl Pills. July Is Still Going to Be Its Deadliest Month.

Tucson Built an Opioid Sobering Center That Works — Then Left It Two-Thirds Staffed

Arizona Sends $10 Million to Sheriff's Offices for Reentry. The Test Is What Happens After the Cell Door Opens.

Arizona Has 30,000 Active Meth Cases and No Plan to Pay for the Only Proven Treatment

Arizona Is Going the Wrong Direction

Arizona's $34.8 Million: What the SOR IV Grant Can—and Can't—Fix

Arizona Released Its Annual Substance Use Report. Meth Is Now the Primary Story.

Arizona Addiction Treatment Funding 2026: New Resources

Arizona Has $1.2 Billion to Fix Its Addiction Crisis. Here Is What Is Happening to the Money.

Arizona Spent $582M on Addiction Treatment Last Year. It Also Lost $2.8B to Fraud and Turned Away 140,000 Patients.

Arizona's New SUD Data: 37,000 on Medication, 73% of Overdoses Reversed — and Still 49th in Access

143,997 Arizonans Got SUD Treatment Last Year. The Number That Worries Us Is the One Not in the Report.

Going the Wrong Way: How Arizona's Overdose Deaths Climbed While the Country's Fell

Arizona's Behavioral Health Budget Just Got a July 1 Fuse

Arizona Spent $582 Million on SUD Treatment Last Year. Federal Policy Is About to Test Whether That Investment Survives.

Maricopa County Is Starting Medications in Jail. That’s the Point.