UC Riverside hosts inaugural methamphetamine summit — a long-overdue research signal

On April 20, 2026, the UC Riverside School of Medicine convened the first system-wide UC Summit on Methamphetamine. The stated goal: lay the groundwork for a UCR-based research and education center focused on stimulant use disorder.

It’s a small headline with a big subtext.

Why this is news

Stimulants have been the quiet half of the overdose crisis for years. A 2026 perspective in Frontiers in Psychiatry finds that stimulants were involved in 59% of U.S. overdose deaths between January 2021 and June 2024, and that 43% of those deaths co-involved both stimulants and opioids — usually because of fentanyl contamination of methamphetamine and cocaine supply. Despite those numbers, stimulant-specific research and treatment infrastructure has lagged opioid-focused investment by roughly an order of magnitude.

There are no FDA-approved medications for methamphetamine use disorder. Contingency management — paying people for negative drug tests — has the strongest evidence base, and it’s still rare in routine clinical settings. A new academic center won’t fix that overnight, but it does signal that the methamphetamine half of the crisis is being treated as a research priority, not a footnote.

Why this matters for people in recovery

If methamphetamine or another stimulant is part of your story, you’ve likely been told there isn’t a medication that helps. That’s still mostly true — but the field is finally catching up to where the deaths are. Behavioral treatments work. Contingency management works. Harm reduction practices like fentanyl test strips matter even if you don’t intend to use opioids, because the supply is no longer clean.

If you’re trying to figure out what’s available in Arizona, Rize Recovery can help match you to options that fit your situation, your insurance, and the substances you’re actually using.