Gift link. A $5 Million Donation From Big Tobacco Preceded F.D.A. Vape Decision Reynolds American’s contribution to MAGA Inc. came about one week before the Trump administration announced a new policy on e-cigarettes the company had sought. www.nytimes.com/2026/05/20/u...

Kicking the Language of Drug and Substance “Abuse” When it comes to substance use, language matters. thewaronpeople.substack.com/p/kicking-th...

Trump's latest attack on harm reduction funds only tactics that help after someone's drug use has caused harm— so, yes, overdose antidotes; no, test strips to see if you're about to shoot fentanyl.... again, the cruelty is the point, my latest www.nytimes.com/2026/05/14/o...

Anyone who thinks that ultra high dose naloxone is just fine, and we shouldn’t really care about precipitated withdrawal isn’t afraid enough of ARDS. If you don’t care about compassion, please leave healthcare. While you’re working on that, care about the patient inhaling their barf and dying.

Trump’s sudden cut in substance testing is ‘going to kill people’, experts warn Samhsa said funding cannot be used to purchase or distribute fentanyl test strips or other drug test kits www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

How the Trump White House works against itself in its efforts to prevent overdoses Contradictory policies that gut harm reduction programs while supporting naloxone access are confusing experts www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Harm Reduction Works. 'Wellness Farms' Won’t. — Funding restrictions remove lifesaving support for those at risk of overdose www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/seco...

"This brings the death toll from strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific to more than 190 people since September." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"This brings the death toll from strikes on such vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific to more than 190 people since September." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Today, on International Harm Reduction Day, we honour everyone working to keep people alive, safe, connected, and cared for. This work is hard. Many are carrying grief, exhaustion, and uncertainty. But we are stronger together, and none of us do this work alone. #harmreduction

story updated to include emailed statement from Health Minister @josieosborne.bsky.social and I summarize its implied message to the mayor as: "Tough beans. Simmer down." #vanpoli #bcpoli www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

New from NAHEWD: Evidence-Based Treatment for Stimulant Use Disorders Among Populations at Elevated Risk for HIV www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Z_...

Gift link. AIDS Creeps Back in Parts of Zambia, a Year After U.S. Cuts to H.I.V. Assistance A once-robust H.I.V. treatment and prevention system, credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives, has begun to crumble. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/25/h...

“A Punch in the Gut”: After Years of Waiting, Many Opioid Victims Will Be Shut Out of Purdue Settlement Nearly 140,000 people filed claims against the company for the harm they said its drugs caused. Fewer than half of them will get any compensation. www.propublica.org/article/purd...

“Estimates of the death toll during Duterte’s presidential term vary, from the more than 6,000 that the national police have reported to up to 30,000 claimed by human rights groups.“ The police weren’t particularly interested in “solving” more cases — having been complicit in them.

the 'war on drugs' IS a crime against humanity

Trump psychedelics order largely symbolic, analysts say Executive order to speed access to psychedelic treatments likely to have limited legal impact despite high-profile push www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Ex-Philippine President Duterte to face trial on crimes against humanity charges apnews.com/article/icc-...

‘We were terrified they were going to kill us’: fishers who survived US boat strike speak out An Ecuadorian fishing crew describe their ordeal as victims of Trump’s purported war on ‘narcoterrorists’ www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

US military strike on alleged drug boat kills 3 in Caribbean Sea apnews.com/article/boat...

I recently saw anti-AZT rhetoric online. The account blamed AZT for causing AIDS. it occurs to me that most young people on social media have never heard of AZT. So for the record: HIV causes AIDS. AZT was the first HIV medication. It was and is imperfect, but it also saved millions of lives.

"I started applying to Goodwill stores. They were on the list I’d been given, right? After two job offers that got revoked, a third location offered me a manager position. They knew about my record, so I hoped to God this one worked out."

Shared Mistakes: Societies Address Mass Incarceration,the Death Penalty and Extrajudicial Killings www.youtube.com/watch?v=LG5o...

Historic decline in U.S. overdose deaths threatened by changing street drug supply www.npr.org/2026/04/14/n...

Drug Policy Facts: Medetomidine www.drugpolicyfacts.org/chapter/mede...

Gift link. Inside a One-Man Workshop for Ultrapotent Drugs Times reporters were given access to a small operation on the frontier of illicit drugs. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Will new NJ Governor Mikie Sherrill maintain harm reduction momentum as promised? Experts take differing views of her likely commitment, reports Alexander Lekhtman, but agree that the fiscal picture and Trump's cuts present severe obstacles:

The New York Times rediscovers the Iron Law of Prohibition. Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/s...

"Wednesday’s strikes brings the total number of deaths to at least 163 people since the defense department began attacking alleged “narco-terrorists” last September in more than 45 strikes." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Drug Consumption Rooms in Practice: Facts, Myths, and Lessons Based on Experience and Evidence correlation-net.org/2026/03/02/s... #CND69

MDMA Therapy in Australia Shows Results, but the Cost Is Limiting Access The country’s experiment with psychedelic medicine has led to positive outcomes, psychiatrists say, but also highlights the limitations of the nascent field. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/24/h...

Drug War: How the World Failed the Philippines Aside from the belated case at the International Criminal Court, institutions of international accountability have been missing in action. thediplomat.com/2026/03/drug...

US-backed airstrikes leave Ecuador border communities in fear www.france24.com/en/live-news...

US has struck another alleged drug-smuggling boat, US Southern Command says One person survived and two were killed, the military said, who were turned over to Costa Rican coast guard www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

DEA names Colombian president 'priority target' as US prosecutors probe ties to drug traffickers apnews.com/article/us-i...

A $5,500 device aims to treat opioid addiction with electrical pulses to the brain. But the FDA hasn't approved the device to treat addiction. And some researchers and recovery advocates say the company’s rapid consumption of opioid settlement dollars raises red flags.

The researchers found that “the median [opioid treatment program] had 30-day, 90-day, and 180-day retention rates of 61.2%, 41.5%, and 27.5%, respectively.” "It is an unacceptable health care delivery failure," writes @helenredmond.bsky.social:

EU accession as an opportunity for human rights-based drug policy reform #CND69 www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLWv...

I spent about two full years working on this story. The FBI announced its investigation of ARC for Medicaid fraud in 2024, but there has been little indication of what they were specifically accused of. Thanks to two new pieces of information this year, I pieced it together, here:

Murder on the Land and the Sea: Extrajudicial Drug War Killings in the 21st Century Side event at the 69th session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoEs... #CND69

Opioid Overdose Deaths: National Trends and Variation by Demographics and States www.kff.org/mental-healt...

Alcohol deaths increased gradually before the pandemic, spiked to a peak of 54,258 in 2021, and have fallen somewhat since then, down to 46,714 in 2024. Even after these declines, deaths remained above 2019, the year before the pandemic. https://on.kff.org/4uc6YUQ

"Sunday’s attack brought the death toll to at least 157 people since the Trump administration began targeting those it calls 'narcoterrorists' in small vessels in early September." apnews.com/article/boat...

"Daniel Noboa, Ecuador’s 'president and a close ally of Donald Trump, said Washington was among 'regional allies' taking part in the operation against drug cartels, which use ports to smuggle cocaine to international markets." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

🎉🎉 2nd report from the 2025 RAND Psychedelics Survey is live! Nearly 25% of Americans support the legal use of psilocybin “magic” mushrooms. This is similar to the level of support for cannabis before U.S. states started passing medical cannabis laws in the late 1990s www.rand.org/pubs/researc...

Call for inputs: OHCHR report on the impact of drug policies on the rights of women and girls idpc.net/news/2026/02...

Drugs, denial and stigma: the babies and children swept up in Fiji’s HIV nightmare Vulnerable young people, partners of drug users and victims of sexual violence also among those afflicted in world’s fastest growing HIV epidemic www.theguardian.com/world/2026/f...

"In short: Visits to supervised consumption services are deflated through selective data collection, by cuts to frontline services such as supply distribution and consumption site capacity, and by aggressive policy against unhoused people."

Alberta has a serious disinformation problem, its government weaponizing “experts” willing to cash in credentials for power. Last year, that tactic — and those people — were leveraged to help close supervised consumption sites across Ontario. drugdatadecoded.ca/inaccurate-d...

"Members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the most powerful and feared criminal organisations in Mexico, have unleashed a wave of violence across 20 Mexican states." www.bbc.com/news/article...