A new national study of MDMA deaths has put hard numbers on an awkward point for drug checking. Much of the risk sits outside the pill, in the body that takes it and in everything else taken alongside it. Researchers at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW Sydney examined 217 deaths recorded...
A new synthetic opioid is spreading through the illicit drug supply, and the early data make sobering reading. Ella Ruder reported in Becker’s Behavioral Health on 14 September 2026 that cychlorphine has been tied to at least 55 deaths across the United States since 2025. Laboratory work suggests the drug is about 10 times more...
Drug fatalities in Scotland rose by 11 per cent in 2025, with 1,133 people losing their lives. According to the National Records of Scotland, the country still has the highest rate of drug deaths in Europe. The figures have also fuelled a heated row over decriminalisation. What the Figures Show The age standardised rate reached...
Drug use deaths in Scotland rose by 11% in 2025, with 1,133 people losing their lives. That is 116 more than the year before, and it takes the total for the past decade to more than 11,000. The figures, published by National Records of Scotland (NRS), confirm that the country still has the highest rate...
Marsh Ward met his first rule breaker in the mid 1980s. It changed everything he believed about helping addicts. As clinical director of Clean and Sober Streets in Washington DC, Ward had opened his doors with no rules at all. “They’re all adults, aren’t they?” he reasoned. Feed people, house people, and surely they would...
Jessica DiDia’s mother found her on a San Francisco street and asked her to come inside. “You know you’re going to die out here?” Laurie Steves said. Jessica’s answer: “So? I’m going to die one day anyway.” She walked away. Nobody stopped her. Nobody was supposed to. That exchange, recorded by journalist Heather Knight, sits...
The American Society of Addiction Medicine recently flagged several pieces of research. Here are three, checked directly against the original study text, and the clearest thread running through them is that stimulant overdose deaths are moving in the opposite direction from the rest of the overdose crisis. 1. Stimulant Overdose Deaths Kept Rising in 2024,...
Officials say a fentanyl analogue threat is now reaching every corner of the country. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has issued a Drug Threat Notice warning that carfentanil, fluorofentanyl and methylfentanyl are circulating in communities nationwide. Each is as potent as fentanyl itself. Carfentanil is up to one hundred times stronger....
Hundreds of purple flags lined the lawn at Waterfront Park on 31 August, and each one stood for a person. The display marked the 25th International Overdose Awareness Day. The 840 flags represent the county residents who died from an overdose in 2025, and they carried a plain message: more work is needed to save...
A new Connecticut study has put cannabis and traffic fatalities back under the spotlight. Researchers found that more people killed on the state’s roads tested positive for the drug after recreational use became legal in 2021. However, the authors admit the data cannot show whether cannabis played a part in any single crash. What the...