fraudulent addiction treatment will remain common until we actually have standards of care that don't allow billing for "faith based" approaches led by poorly trained peers. www.propublica.org/article/kent... if you wouldn't pay for it for depression or cancer, you shouldn't pay for it for addiction

70% of all people in jails are legally innocent. Many of them are held behind bars simply because they cannot afford bail. Money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time.

“What you see already is the immediate and extremely dangerous policy of bombing regions without even showing any pretense of evidence that you’re actually hurting the drug trade” www.salon.com/2026/03/31/t...

A single day in jail can derail someone's life – imagine the horrific consequences of multiple bookings in a single year. As we enter 2026, it's time for the U.S. to embrace housing-first solutions, not increased policing & criminalization.

1. It was not an accident. 2. It was not a staffer. 3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia. 4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares. 5. His base agrees with him. 6. He will do it again. 7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

Devastating. Infuriating. Murderous. These cruel funding cuts will destroy grassroots and treatment programs that are providing vital life-saving services to people who use drugs and those with addictions. www.npr.org/2026/01/14/n...

Really excited for this new Congressional briefing series hosted by the Addiction Science Defense Network- Register to join their first session on January 13th 2:30-4pm EDT and share with your member of Congress so we can preserve federal funding! www.npscoalition.org/congressiona...

"The expansion of coca cultivation is a direct driver of deforestation in the Andean valleys and the Colombian Amazon." - Learn more about how illegal coca cultivation and the drug war are driving climate and environmental disaster www.reformrestorerecover.org/evidence

“The media oftentimes relinquishes its role in public education and public awareness, instead fanning the flames of fear and hysteria that can lead to support for harsher penalties and more stigmatization,” says @myharmreduction.bsky.social. objectivejournalism.org/2025/11/balt...

The HUGEST congratulations to my friend, colleague, hero @nabarund.bsky.social for being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his incredible harm reduction work and research. #MacFellow www.macfound.org/fellows/clas...

Hey Detroit! I will be doing a book talk on Tuesday, October 14th, alongside Kassandra Frederique and Valerie Kelley-Bonner. The event is 3-6 pm, and it is FREE. Simply register using the QR code on the flyer. Help spread the word!

SAVE THE DATE: Sept 25th 4:30-6pm EST Join us for our September Drug Researchers' Roundtable with Drs. Cerda and Allen where they will discuss research on NYC's Overdose Prevention Centers and their impact on neighborhood conditions. Register: bit.ly/Sep2025Roundtable

“They say they want to protect Americans from drugs, but their policies don’t match these words,” says Hanna Sharif-Kazemi as the administration talks up more drug-war strikes. A new tracker helps quantify the damage to people who use drugs of domestic cuts, reports @tganeva.bsky.social:

"Our existing system subjects hundreds of thousands of legally innocent people per year to the horrors of incarceration" @bailproject.org on the importance (and effectiveness!) of ending cash bail for @nytopinion.nytimes.com👇

SAVE THE DATE: Sept 25th 4:30-6pm EST Join us for our September Drug Researchers' Roundtable with Drs. Cerda and Allen where they will discuss research on NYC's Overdose Prevention Centers and their impact on neighborhood conditions. Register: bit.ly/Sep2025Roundtable

New episode with @myharmreduction.bsky.social all about the victims of bad drug policy we don't hear about and how to face the attacks on harm reduction. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, etc. open.spotify.com/episode/2Lzx...

🚨🗞️ JOURNALISTS: As the criminalization of homelessness runs rampant in DC & across the country, it's more important than ever to rely on data to get the story right. Here are some useful resources that can help you to fight through misinformation 🧵

DC will be the testing ground. Next up could be your city. Where do they go? No one knows. The point is to disappear people without addressing the root causes- most notably, our housing affordability crisis.

Hey fam, my new book, Read This When Things Fall Apart, comes out in three months. That means now is the critical window for preorders, which help get books on shelves, in libraries, and into the hands of the people who need them most. www.pilsencommunitybooks.com/item/vCQt68D...

What an insult to our harm reduction movement and elders who fought so hard for naloxone and fentanyl test strip access. Check out the atrocious language in the latest letter from SAMHSA claiming these tools are "not harm reduction." www.samhsa.gov/sites/defaul...

The wonderful @myharmreduction.bsky.social will be at Red Emma's next month to talk about her book, "The Harm Reduction Gap." It's an excellent read, and I highly recommend attending the event. Details: withfriends.co/event/264441...

SAVE THE DATE: August 27th at 7pm Baltimore I'll be doing an in-person book talk and signing at Red Emma's. Register and bring a friend! I would love to see you there. redemmas.org/events/sheil...

This administration has prioritized punishment, penalties, tariffs, and border enforcement in the name of our loved ones who died of overdose. All while gutting the very programs & strategies that are saving lives, and cutting the research for solutions. www.npr.org/2025/07/16/n...

"An increasingly hostile political and legal environment appears to be directly translating into greater police interference with health services," write Liam Michaud & co-authors of their new study, for which Ontario service users and providers were interviewed:

Appreciate this NYT coverage about Contingency Management, one of the most studied approaches to treating addiction- and one of our strongest tools to help people with stimulant use disorders. Rewards, not punishment! www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/h...

People always ask me, "Sheila, but what about the kids?" Now I can refer them to this great textbook. Preorder your copy today! It's by Amanda Reiman and Barry Lessin - "Harm Reduction Approaches with Adolescents who use Substances." www.amazon.com/Harm-Reducti...

Seeing some posts referring to Kilmar Abrego Garcia as being "kept safe" in jail. No one is safe in jail, fam. Incarceration strips years off people's lives and manufactures premature death. It's very important to understand this, especially now.

"False positives for synthetic cannabinoids can be used to sanction prisoners and to fuel clicky headlines; accuracy doesn't matter unless the results would need to hold up in court. Which may explain why synthetic cannabinoids have awkwardly disappeared from federal sentencing data."

"Courts might give prison mail a three-day grace period, but they won't believe it took a month for your mail to make it to the post office."

My heart is with my Iranian friends and their families. May everyone live.

One of the cruelest, most unproductive disciplinary punishments prisons often turn to is taking away visitation Here's the truth: Visitation has positive impacts for everyone – better health, reduced recidivism, and improvement in school. It should be a right, not a "privilege"

I was anti-war in 2003 when I was 21 and had no social media. Even then, I knew there were no WMDs. This time is no different.

More than 1 in 3 people in state prisons were first arrested before their 16th birthday. The criminalization of youth has life-altering consequences. Shouldn't the US be investing in youth instead of locking them up?

Thanks for tuning in to our #CPDD2025 reads! Which article was your favorite? Consider publishing your next substance use related article in AJDAA!

Our harm reduction family continues to experience tremendous loss. I am deeply saddened by the loss of Naomi Burke-Shyne and Peter Krykant. Both made a tremendous impact in the short time they were with us. I wish we had more time with both. May we be their continuation.

If you know (or are) an Early Career Researcher heading to #CPDD2025 on Saturday, be sure to swing by our panel to learn about different career paths! I'll talk about my journey to policy advocacy. Swing by Bayside Ballroom A at 2:45pm!

Formerly incarcerated people earn far less than the general population – about 53% of the median US worker’s wage. Reentry is difficult in and of itself. How is anyone supposed to successfully navigate it without financial stability?

"Community-controlled decriminalization is a better path to mainstreaming psychedelics than relinquishing power to the medical industry and pharmaceutical cartels that provide monopolized services to primarily affluent customers." Read more: thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

THREAD. A lot of attention is rightly going to Medicaid cuts and other very bad things in Trump's bill passed by the House, but there's something else that isn't getting enough attention, that is very difficult to find in any news coverage, but that will fundamentally alter life for all of us.

This comment period ends today, 5/23, at 11:59 pm ET. Please do comment asap if you believe the government should allow us to get COVID vaccinations. I can't believe we even have to petition them about this, but here we are.

Absolutely infuriating. These cuts are putting our most vulnerable at risk while enriching those who need it the least. There's a reason why it happened in the middle of the night. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...

My latest research: we found baseline fentanyl test strip (FTS) use was associated with greater engagement in overdose risk reduction behaviors but not with the risk of nonfatal overdose. In this population, using FTS did not lead to more risk taking behavior jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

Our letter with 325 signatures of acadmics across the US was featured in a CNN story today about overdose death reductions and how this trend could be reversed if we don't preserve federal funding for livesaving services www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/h...

ICYMI- The third panel in our "New Drugs and New Markets" series is now available online. We discussed the complexities of drug markets and their impacts on health and safety. Check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR-V...

Our faculty sign-on letter against federal funding cuts also got some coverage in the New York Times last night www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/h...

This Open Letter from addiction and mental health experts was sent late Monday evening to congress! Major to SAMHSA, CDC and HRSA are unacceptable #fentanyl @jencarroll.bsky.social @chadsabora.bsky.social @brownpublichealth.bsky.social @defendpublichealth.bsky.social www.npr.org/2025/05/13/n...

Proud to have worked alongside faculty advocates to draft and get signatories for this letter. We got 325 US-based faculty to sign on against cuts to Medicaid, SAMHSA, CDC, and HRSA. www.npr.org/2025/05/13/n...

Check out the latest study from CDUHR investigator Saba Rouhani - “All You Can Do is What You Know to Do”: Naloxone Knowledge and Uncertainty Among People Who Use Drugs in Maryland amid a Volatile Drug Market www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

MIssouri's Republican Senator Hawley: "Republicans need to open their eyes: Our voters support social insurance programs. More than that, our voters depend on those programs." www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/o...

Are you planning to attend @cpddorg.bsky.social this year? If so, I was just added to a workshop on Saturday afternoon 6/14 at 2:45pm for early career researchers to discuss my non-traditional PhD journey to the policy advocacy space. I'd love to see students and post-docs there!