Kastalia Medrano

Mortality Rate for LA’s Unhoused Residents Drops for the First Time

For the first time in the decade that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health has been tracking mortality…

March 12, 2026

FDA Eyeing “Drug Disposal” Products, for Destroying Rx Opioids at Home

The Food and Drug Administration is asking the public to weigh in on the merits of commercial drug-disposal products, for…

March 11, 2026

CDC Identifies Specific Drugs Most Frequently Cited in Overdose Deaths

On March 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention a published a National Vital Statistics Report on the drugs most…

March 9, 2026

No, Synthetic Opioid Cychlorphine Has Not Proved Narcan “Ineffective”

A minor media frenzy has been forming around cychlorphine, a novel synthetic opioid described as the "next killer drug" taking…

March 5, 2026

DEA Permanently Bans Five Benzos, the First to Be Placed in Schedule I

On March 2, the Drug Enforcement Administration published a final rule permanently scheduling five benzodiazepines under the Controlled Substances Act.…

March 3, 2026

Oklahoma Weighs “Repeat Offender” Law for Drug Use During Pregnancy

Oklahoma is considering a bill that would increase the state’s authority to intervene when people use unregulated drugs during pregnancy,…

February 26, 2026

Pressured by Fentanyl Deaths, County Coroner Laws Evolve in Weird Ways

Legislators in Indiana have unanimously advanced a bill that proposes an unusual solution to the shortage of qualified coroners to…

February 25, 2026

Illinois HOPE Act Would “Codify Harm Reduction” and Housing-First

Illinois is considering a wide-ranging harm reduction bill that advocates believe may have traction with legislators. If enacted, the Holistic…

February 24, 2026

FDA Drops Drug-Approval Standard From Two Controlled Trials to One

The Food and Drug Administration will no longer expect pharmaceutical manufacturers to submit two pivotal trials in applications for new…

February 23, 2026

Audit: Widespread Failures in Federal Prisons’ Use of Halfway House System

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is not only continuing to incarcerate people past the point when they should have…

February 18, 2026