drug checking

There’s Finally an Accurate Drug-Checking Kit for Ketamine

Ketamine has long been a popular club drug, but try to buy it these days and there's a not-insignificant chance…

August 24, 2021

Research Adds to Weight of Evidence on People Checking Drugs They Sell

It’s not just people who use drugs making use of drug test kits and machines—people who also sell the substances…

June 30, 2021

Just Months Into a Yearlong Pilot, New Zealand Legalizes Drug-Checking

Festival-goers in New Zealand were taking what they thought was pure MDMA. But days after ingestion, the drugs were leading…

May 5, 2021

The Mission to Save Lives by Deciphering Philly’s Volatile Drug Supply

Conditions in the Kensington neighborhood of North Philadelphia, where I’ve reported for years, stand as a rebuke to a litany…

April 15, 2021

CDC Recommends Drug-Checking Services Amid Historic Overdose Deaths

As the already-staggering death toll of the overdose crisis reaches historic heights, the United States' premier public health agency called…

December 24, 2020

Leaked FBI Report: Drug Sellers Practice Harm Reduction

The recognition that people who sell drugs can play a crucial role in reducing the harms caused by drug criminalization…

December 2, 2020

Despite Fentanyl’s Ubiquity, Test Strips Can Still Empower Drug Users

As the presence of illicit fentanyl has reached near-ubiquity in many North American heroin supplies, some harm reductionists have questioned…

August 25, 2020

Are More Clubbers Taking Ketamine Without Knowing It?

It’s safe to say Joseph Palamar goes to a lot of raves. Since 2016, he’s attended more than 125 parties…

March 9, 2020

New Drugs, Bad Policies Leave Philly Harm Reduction Groping in the Dark

The “Walmart of Heroin” is how the New York Times described Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood—in a much-criticized October 2018 story that…

September 19, 2019

Watch: Fentanyl Safety Campaign Poses the “Coke Challenge”

US-based harm reduction group DanceSafe and Canadian creative agency The Garden have partnered to present the "Coke Challenge" ahead of…

August 29, 2019