Kastalia Medrano

    Kastalia is Filter‘s deputy editor. She previously worked at half a dozen mainstream digital media outlets and does not recommend the drug war coverage at any of them. For a while she was a syringe program peer worker in NYC, where she did outreach hep C testing and navigated participants through treatment. She also writes with Jon Kirkpatrick.

    Historic Drop in Overdose Deaths Has Slowed by More Than Half Since 2024

    On April 15, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published its most recent ...

    Illinois Bill Would Put Long-Acting OUD Meds in Prisons, Sort Of

    Illinois lawmakers are considering a proposal to pilot long-acting injectable medication for opioid use ...

    HHS Tries Again to Sell Congress on Administration for a Healthy America

    In the year since Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy ...

    State Bills to Regulate Kratom Advance, Alongside Ones to Ban It

    Nine months after Rhode Island passed a law regulating the sale of kratom, the ...

    White House Budget: No Funds for Housing, Some for Reopening Alcatraz

    President Donald Trump has released his proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2027, which outlines ...

    CDC and ONDCP Issue Health Alert for Medetomidine, an Unusual Move

    On April 6 the White House announced a Health Alert Network (HAN) advisory warning ...

    Congress Poised to Schedule Xylazine, Because Otherwise the DEA Will Do It

    Three years in the making, the legislative push to place xylazine under Schedule III ...

    Illinois Overdose Prevention Center Bill Is Moving Forward Again

    In Illinois, a bill to authorize an overdose prevention center (OPC) pilot is working ...

    Rezenopy, the 10 Mg Naloxone Nasal Spray, Enters the OD Antidote Market

    Two years after its approval by the Food and Drug Administration, opioid-overdose reversal product ...

    DEA Emergency Order Puts Novel Benzo Bromazolam in Schedule I

    The Drug Enforcement Administration has temporarily placed bromazolam, an unregulated benzodiazepine, under Schedule I ...