The report focuses on quantitative data for fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine as well as qualitative data for seven novel psychoactive substances (NPS) selected by ONDCP: acetyl fentanyl, carfentanil, ketamine, medetomidine, para-fluorofentanyl, tianeptine and xylazine. Quantitative analysis refers to the concentration of a substance relative to the size of the population using that sampling site, which isn’t necessarily possible for those that are less prevalent or more potent than fentanyl, cocaine or meth. The data represent about 18 percent of the United States population, and according to ONDCP is the country’s largest wastewater drug-monitoring project to date.

After first analyzing the seven NPS by census region, the agency decided to hone in on individual counties where at least six of the seven had been identified.

“Counties where at least six drugs were detected may signal broader polysubstance activity, making them important areas for closer monitoring,” the report states. It also labels counties as “hotspots” for fentanyl, cocaine and meth use.

Similarly, the report points out that medetomidine, para-fluorofentanyl, carfentanil and acetyl fentanyl were identified in all census regions, “signaling potential emerging and re-emerging threats.” But there’s no indication of scale for any of the NPS data, even in the report’s accompanying supplement.

For some states, the data really reflect a single county. Other states have data from up to nine counties. And within the county-level data, there’s no standardization in how many sampling sites were included, or whether multiple sites were spread out versus concentrated in one location. 

The government isn’t required to get the public’s consent to test wastewater because, legally speaking at least, property is no longer private once we’ve thrown it away; it’s the same concept behind why cops don’t need a warrant to go through trash cans on the curb.

Biobot Analytics, the first commercial wastewater-testing company, began contracting with ONDCP in January. (The National Institutes of Health has already been working with Biobot for wastewater drug-testing since 2020.) In May, the new National Drug Control Strategy called for the establishment of a “national wastewater-based monitoring system,” and referenced wastewater testing as a means of confirming AI analyses of emerging drug trends on social media.

Notably, wastewater data doesn’t distinguish between regulated and unregulated versions of a substance. This means that Adderall use, whether prescribed or not, is getting categorized as methamphetamine.

The utility of wastewater testing mostly depends on whether the data is going to public health or to law enforcement. However anonymized the samples might be initially, it’s not difficult for law enforcement to trace the information back to a specific toilet if they really want to.

“Unlike many sources, wastewater is unbiased by household income, race or gender, ensuring equal representation,” Biobot stated in a 2023 blog post about wastewater testing in the context of allocating opioid settlement funds. “With 80 percent of American households and almost all public restrooms included, wastewater analysis offers insights into where substances are used.”

Wastewater itself isn’t biased by income, but it’s harder to say that about wastewater analysis, which is entirely contingent on access to indoor plumbing.

Top and inset images (cropped) via Office of National Drug Control Policy/X.com

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“In recent years, there has been growing interest in and active research on the therapeutic potential of psychedelic drugs, in particular for the treatment of serious mental health conditions,” the FDA stated. “In response, FDA has made significant advances in psychedelic drug development through the issuance of scientific guidance, engagement with federal partners and the public, and regulatory actions to support drug development.”

A four-hour public hearing has been set for September 14 at the FDA campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. Requests to attend, either virtually or in person, must be submitted by August 21. The public can submit comment electronically up through October 5. Confidential submissions can also be sent by mail, as long as they’re received by the same deadline.

It’s likely that the first approvals of Schedule I psychedelics would be followed by proposals for rescheduling.

The clinical guidance is the final version of draft guidance the FDA issued in June 2023.

“Drug development programs for psychedelic drugs are subject to the same regulations and same evidentiary standards for approval as other drug development programs,” the final guidance states. “However, designing clinical studies to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of these products presents a number of unique challenges.”

The agency went on to describe the potential for “intense perceptual disturbances and alterations in consciousness,” as well as “both rapid-onset and long-term benefits,” sometimes after only one dose.

“There is preliminary evidence that psychedelic therapies can rewire the brain and produce rapid improvements for people with serious mental illness or substance use disorders,” stated National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. “However, we still have much to learn about long-term benefits and risks, including the potential for misuse.”

A number of psychedelic substances have been heavily researched for their potential to treat conditions like SUD, post-traumatic stress disorder and major depressive disorder. These include psilocybin (the active compound in “magic mushrooms”) LSD, MDMA and ibogaine—all of which are banned under Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Because the criteria for Schedule I are a “high potential for abuse” and no medical use approved by the FDA, it’s likely that the first INDA approvals would be followed by proposals to reschedule those psychedelics to a less-restrictive category, the same process by which medical marijuana was recently moved to Schedule III. The final clinical guidance states that in the event of a Schedule I psychedelic being approved for medical use, “the abuse potential assessment [from the INDA] would assist in determining an appropriate rescheduling action.”

HHS singled out ibogaine in particular.

The HHS announcement singled out ibogaine in particular. The plant-based psychedelic from Central West Africa appears to be in favor with the Trump administration, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse is currently funding research exploring it as a treatment for opioid use disorder.

On July 13, HHS also announced a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the VA. At publication time the VA was involved in 20 active clinical trials studying psychedelic treatments for mental health conditions.

“Under the agreement, HHS and VA will coordinate workforce training, develop evidence-based clinical protocols, support research and real-world evidence generation, and prepare the VA healthcare system to responsibly implement future FDA-approved rapid-acting psychiatric drug products as they become available,” the MOU states. 

It will be in effect through 2031. The partnership will aim to increase veteran participation in clinical trials, train the health care workers involved in such trials, create public awareness materials and facilitate data-sharing that could allow the FDA to issue INDA approvals more quickly.

The HHS announcement also referenced a “separate, complementary MOU” pertaining to mental health treatment more broadly, but this appeared to be the same one announced by the FDA. That MOU is the only one recently listed in the FDA’s Domestic MOU catalog, although there its expiration date is “Indefinite” rather than the five-year term described elsewhere. The FDA did not respond to Filter’s inquiry.

Image via Hillsboro, Oregon

The post FDA Schedules Psychedelics Hearing, Amid New Push for Medical Approval appeared first on Filter.

The state alleged that “most” of the 641 million prescription opioid pills Albertsons dispensed during the 16-year period investigated had unresolved “red flags,” referring to activity that the Drug Enforcement Administration’s proprietary algorithms register as suspicious.  

“The AG’s office’s investigation revealed that between 2006 and 2022 Albertsons unlawfully dispensed opioid orders without adequately investigating and documenting the resolution of such red flags,” the Office of Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown stated ahead of the trial. “Albertsons also self-distributed opioids to its own pharmacy stores for a span of time and failed to report any of the more than the tens of thousands of suspicious orders from its own pharmacies to the DEA as required by law. Instead, Albertsons shipped them all.” 

During the investigation period Albertsons owned the state’s second-largest pharmacy chain. The company acquired Safeway in 2015, and owns a number of other grocery chains like the Washington-based Haggen stores. Between those brands the company currently owns about 200 pharmacies across Washington. For approximately five years Albertsons was also the distributor to its own pharmacy stores.

Similar to much of the other opioid litigation against major pharmacy chains, Washington alleged that Albertsons repeatedly pressured pharmacists to fill as many prescriptions as possible while ignoring “red flags,” required them to fill prescriptions from “pill mill” prescribers, prevented information from being exchanged between different store locations, and generally put profits over people. 

The lawsuit alleges that Albertsons violated not only Washington’s Consumer Protection Act, but state-level nuisance statutes. Washington defines a “public nuisance” as one that affects “the rights of the entire community or neighborhood,” and an “actionable nuisance” as including “whatever is injurious to health or indecent or offensive to the senses.”

In the tradition of opioid litigation nationally, the lawsuit features a number of tropes that come at the expense of chronic pain patients and anyone living outside.

In April, Albertsons announced a $774 million settlement that spanned multiple states including California, Colorado, Illinois and Oregon. 

“This settlement framework marks a significant step toward resolving opioid-related litigation, and Albertsons Cos. believes the settlement framework is in the best interest of all parties,” the company stated in April. “This settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing or liability.”

Washington, however, continued to pursue the litigation it had filed in 2022. The state has not yet announced the amount it’s seeking in damages. In addition to Albertsons, the lawsuit names Kroger, Rite-Aid and multiple subsidiaries owned by each. Kroger settled for $47.5 million in 2024. Rite-Aid declared bankruptcy in late 2025. To date, Washington’s opioid litigation payouts total approximately $1.3 billion.

In the tradition of opioid litigation nationally, the 2022 lawsuit features a number of opioid tropes that come at the expense of chronic pain patients and anyone living outside. It warns of babies being “born addicted,” and long-term use being associated with “significant mortality.” It describes “drug-seeking patients” who fake their symptoms. 

The “nuisance” conditions Albertsons has allegedly wrought include the various health care settings, abandoned homes and public spaces that “have attracted opioid drug dealers and people seeking illicit opioids.” Unlawful prescribing is further blamed for negatively impacting parks, libraries and other public spaces.

“The scope of human suffering and economic cost of opioids on Washington reverberates far beyond overdose mortality rate,” the lawsuit states. “The State spends significant additional public resources on medical services, law enforcement, corrections, workers’ compensation, diversion programs, prosecution, probation, treatment, and child welfare because of the impacts of opioids.” 

The state seems to be spending additional resources because of the impacts of the criminalization of opioids, not the opioids themselves. Its other complaints reflect distortions, exaggerations or the nation’s affordable housing crisis.

Image courtesy of Albertsons Companies

The post WA Begins Albertsons Opioid Trial, for Pharmacy’s Role in “Public Nuisance” appeared first on Filter.

Applications are due July 27. Some grants have pre-application webinars scheduled in the coming days.

The largest investment, $68.25 million, will support the “Medication-Assisted Treatment – Prescription Drug and Opioid Addiction” grant. SAMHSA anticipates up to 91 recipients, awarded around $750,000 each.

Among other requirements, recipients would need to “ensure access” to methadone, either by providing it directly or by coordinating with other programs, as well as ensure that “all applicable practitioners” complete the training necessary to prescribe buprenorphine. Recipients are required to offer at least one MOUD, but thankfully no particular mention is made of naltrexone (Vivitrol). They would also be required to create “tobacco cessation programs” for people receiving MOUD, noting that integrating the two treatments “improves overall health outcomes without compromising OUD recovery.”

In addition to harm reduction, the funding notices similarly warn against applications that are supportive of Housing First, or that “promote denial … of the sex binary in humans, or the belief that sex is a chosen or mutable characteristic.”

In September 2025 SAMHSA unveiled new strategic priorities that aligned with President Donald Trump’s executive order targeting street-homeless communities and people who use drugs in public. The agency has redefined harm reduction as a model that promotes or enables drug use, while simultaneously redefining MOUD and naloxone access as issues that are unrelated to harm reduction.

In April, the agency removed fentanyl test strips from funding eligibility, along with overdose hotlines that support people using drugs alone.

Other funding allocations include $34.7 million for First Responders-Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act grants. These support naloxone (and nalmefene) trainings for first responders as well as local businesses and organizations that are viewed as “community anchors.” The best examples of these seem to be faith-based organizations, now that syringe service programs can’t apply for these grants or be mentioned in them.

If HHS was putting all this money toward what it viewed as a purely medical problem, you’d think the solution would be viewed the same way.

The funding opportunities are part of the Trump administration’s Great American Recovery Initiative, which since its launch in January has been credited in several similar funding announcements from SAMHSA, though none previously so weighted toward MOUD. The initiative is based in the brain disease model of addiction, a favorite among anyone who wants to say they’re compassionate toward people who use drugs while advancing policies that don’t quite reflect that.

“Addiction is not a moral failure. It is not a character flaw. And it’s not simply a behavioral issue,” Great American Recovery Initiative Co-Chair Kathryn Burgum stated at the Oval Office launch in January. “Addiction is a lifelong, chronic, relapsing medical disease—as real as diabetes, cancer and heart disease.”

If the Department of Health and Human Services was putting all this money toward what it viewed as a purely medical problem, you’d think the solution would be viewed the same way. But as with SAMHSA’s other recent funding opportunities—and funding restrictions—the grant notices specify that MOUD must be provided with other psychosocial services. Methadone and buprenorphine are often enormously effective with or without psychosocial services, ironically for the same reason that “the disease of addiction” is not just a medical issue—it’s a socioeconomic one. To a certain extent this is also true of diabetes and cancer and heart disease, but we don’t usually make the medical treatment of those conditions contingent on counseling and behavioral therapy.

Photograph by Helen Redmond and Marilena Marchetti

The post SAMHSA Rolls Out Funds for OUD Meds, Says That’s Not Harm Reduction appeared first on Filter.

In my five years of reporting on the global cannabis and psychedelic industries, I’ve seen this growth happen in real time, as the gap between those who can afford legal access and those who remain criminalized widens.

This tension between the fight for just drug policies and the race to profit from potential new markets is one that Koram explores at length in his book. A global review in The Lancet is among other recent contributions to the debate; it found cannabis-related harms to be higher in jurisdictions with commercialized legalization models than in those with decriminalization or other forms of legalization.

In The Next Fix, Koram travels across the globe, visiting some of these jurisdictions, to ask some crucial questions at what appears to be an inflection point in the debate over drug policy reform: What comes next, when the war is over? And who will the real winners be?

I sat down with him to find out. Filter’s interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Prof. Kojo Koram

Sarah Sinclair: Your reflections on your time as a lawyer at Angola Prison, on a former slave plantation in Louisiana, when the first state legalized cannabis, are such a stark portrait of the injustice at the heart of prohibition. Was that the moment when you first knew you had to write the book?

Kojo Koram: Angola is an extreme example, but the United Nations estimates that around 20 percent of the world’s prison population—2.5 million people—are in prison for growing, selling, or possessing the wrong type of drug. For me, that was the moment I realised this system wasn’t delivering what it promised.

I was working in the US when the first states [Colorado and Washington] legalized commercial cannabis markets in 2012. Seeing people imprisoned on a modern-day slave plantation for doing something that, elsewhere, people were now getting licenses for, I think that was the moment I started studying this. Eventually, it led to the opportunity to write this book, travelling from jurisdiction to jurisdiction looking at what actually changes when you implement different drug laws. 

“We could be entering a world in which criminalization and commercialization are happening simultaneously, and I think that raises some real questions.”

SS: In the book, you argue that the debate around drug laws is shifting, to be less focused on whether cannabis should be regulated and more around how. Does that mean the “War on Drugs” is ending?

KK: During the 20th century, when people debated the idea of legalizing drugs, we assumed it was a simple yes-or-no question. Either we legalize drugs, or we don’t. But what we’re seeing in the 21st century is something much more complicated. The debate is around how we might legalize these drugs and how some of the systems of commercialization actually reduce some of the impact of criminalization. But we’re also seeing the potential for criminalization and commercialization happening simultaneously.

In December 2025, Donald Trump signed an executive order to reschedule cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, the biggest change in US federal drug policy in the best part of a century. If you’d told a Republican during the Reagan era—when drugs were framed as public enemy number one—that a future Republican president would be signing an executive order to reschedule cannabis and fast-tracking access to psychedelics, they would have thought you’d been spiked. That’s a massive shift, and I don’t want to minimize that. 

But the same month, Trump seized Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela on charges of narcotrafficking. We could be entering a world in which criminalization and commercialization are happening simultaneously, and I think that raises some real questions.

SS: Medical cannabis legislation has shown how legal markets can coexist with continuing criminalization, where many patients can only access treatment if they can afford it while others remain criminalized. Are psychedelic frameworks at risk of repeating the same mistakes? What could an alternative model look like?

KK: In this new psychedelic industry, we’re seeing biotech companies patenting molecules and monopolizing intellectual property. That’s the traditional pharmaceutical model for raising investment to develop these medicines. I visited Australia, which became the first country to legalize prescribed psychedelic treatments [psilocybin and MDMA-assisted therapy] in 2023, but it costs around A$1,000 to access. 

Psychedelics could be one of the most transformative medical advances of the 21st century, given the scale of the global mental health crisis, but if you pick mushrooms from the ground or grow them in your back garden, you could still face criminal consequences. We need to think carefully about how we shape this emerging market to ensure we’re not reinforcing the same structures of exclusion, criminalization and violence upon the communities who suffered most during the War on Drugs.

Within cannabis, we’ve seen very different models of social equity across the US. Some states have pursued highly commercialized models while people continue serving sentences for trafficking offenses. Others, including Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York, have been much more explicit about embedding social equity into legislation. That means expunging criminal records, not just for people currently serving sentences, but for those whose convictions still prevent them from accessing jobs, student loans or travel visas. It means making sure licenses are available to people who were previously excluded from the market, and committing tax revenues to communities that were over-policed, as well as to education and public health. 

These measures can offset some of the risks as these substances become commodified, and can be put in at the point of transition. It’s in the interests of the industry. A century of the War on Drugs has embedded deep fears and stigma around these substances, and a really aggressive commercialized model is just going to facilitate a backlash.

“We have an opportunity to put policies in place that genuinely benefit those on the ground … I think there’s real value in thinking about how we can do this differently.”

 

SS: Perhaps I’m being cynical, but in an ultra-capitalist society, is commercialization inevitable? Or is there still an opportunity to build these markets differently?

KK: I think there’s an opportunity, but that window is closing. The argument needs to be made now. 

One of the industries I compare the emerging cannabis market to in the book is cocoa. Ghana is one of the world’s largest cocoa producers, yet the farmers harvesting those cocoa pods receive only a tiny fraction of the final product’s value. We need to bring together all those working on fair trade, sustainable development and environmental justice initiatives that are trying to intervene in industries like cocoa, coffee and fast-fashion. Cannabis is an entirely new industry and many of its rules haven’t been set yet. 

We have an opportunity to put policies in place that genuinely benefit those on the ground, such as protecting access to land, preventing monopolies over seeds and genetics, and creating protected geographical designations for products such as Jamaican ganja or Moroccan hash, in the same way that Champagne can only come from the Champagne region of France. That is their cultural and financial inheritance. This might be optimistic, but I think there’s real value in thinking about how we can do this differently. 

SS: Some might argue that there is a strong economic argument for a commercial market that generates tax revenue, and surely commercialization is preferable to criminalization?

KK: In the book, I tell the story of a man called Fate Winslow, who was sentenced to life without parole for facilitating a $20 cannabis transaction in Shreveport [Louisiana]. It was his third non-violent conviction. He eventually won his release after 12 years through a series of appeals, but died shortly afterwards. He spent the final years of his life in Angola Prison for facilitating a $20 cannabis transaction. That represents such a profound failure of human rights.

I absolutely recognize that commercialization is preferable to criminalization, but I think we should aim for something much higher than that. We’re living through widening wealth inequality, the devastation of the climate, and huge swathes of the human population being rendered surplus to the actual mechanics of capitalist production. Let’s not just change drug laws, but do it in a way that can mitigate and even repair some of that damage.

“One of the things I wanted to achieve with this book is to help people understand all the different parts of life that drug policy touches.”

SS: In the book, you set out a five-point plan for more fair and equitable regulation. How do we move these ideas from the fringes into mainstream political debate?

KK: For a long time, drug policy has been treated as a niche issue, and other movements have often been reluctant to engage with it because of the stigma. It took organisations like Amnesty International years to adopt a position on ending the War on Drugs, despite the most vulnerable communities being most affected by prohibition. It hasn’t been connected to environmental justice, racial justice or economic justice movements.

One of the things I wanted to achieve with this book is to help people understand all the different parts of life that drug policy touches, from the economy and medicine to the environment and crime. Connecting it to those broader movements will allow for a much more substantive idea of what drug reform might look like, rather than simply handing over a previously prohibited market to a highly commercialized capitalist model.

This is already happening in jurisdictions across the world, but it’s happening in a world where we have rampant wealth inequality, increasing corporate control over technology and infrastructure, and an erosion of living standards for many people. This isn’t the hippie dream of the 1960s, and we need to recognize that when we think about how we can use this moment to make a broader intervention to shape the economy of the 21st century. 

SS: After travelling the world researching and writing The Next Fix, what left you feeling most hopeful about the future of drug policy reform?

KK: What made me most optimistic was how people are using this moment of transition to rethink our relationship with drugs. Humans have been using cannabis and psychedelics for thousands of years, and if the planet survives, we’ll likely be taking them 1,000 years in the future. We’re not going to achieve the drug-free world the UN once promised, so the real question is how we relate to these substances. 

I was really encouraged by models like the cannabis social clubs in Barcelona, which are now being adopted in Germany. If you want something, you don’t just go and buy it, you learn how to grow it, understand different strains, and develop a more thoughtful relationship with what you consume. 

I was also inspired by the conversations around reparative justice, particularly in Colombia, where the War on Drugs wasn’t a metaphor, but a real war. We need a truth and reconciliation process, almost like they had in South Africa, to ensure that this transition benefits Indigenous communities. It’s really exciting seeing examples of reparative justice in how we use technical, legal and financial tools like intellectual property rights or guaranteed ownership within communities that have been overly-policed, to try and transfer wealth to people who’ve been most devastated by the War on Drugs. I was really optimistic to see people thinking about that—and even starting to put it into practice.

Top image shows detail from the cover of The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers Inside the Future of Drugs, to be published by Verso in late July. Images courtesy of Kojo Koram/Verso.

The post Who Will Profit Most When the Drug War Ends? appeared first on Filter.

On July 1 the DEA announced that it had filed one notice of intent to temporarily schedule the synthetic opioid 7-hydroxymitragynine, commonly known as 7-OH, above a certain threshold, as well as another to temporarily schedule three 7-OH derivatives: mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MP), dihydro-7-OH (MGM-15) and the 9-fluoro derivative of 7-OH (MGM-16). The order for 7-OH itself would apply to any kratom plant material that contains more than 0.05 percent 7-OH by dry weight, or contains a volume greater than 1 milligram. Both are expected to go into effect the first week of August.

In a quieter move, on July 1 the Federal Register published the DEA’s notice of intent to schedule cychlorphine and three other orphine analogs. The agency plans to issue the temporary order for the four orphines July 31, “to avoid an imminent hazard to public safety.” Two of the four orphines have only been identified twice each, and one of them has never been linked to overdose.

Orphines are the latest class of synthetic opioid to be identified in the unregulated drug supply, following nitazenes and fentanyl analogs. Until now the lone orphine in the CSA has been brorphine, which the DEA temporarily scheduled in 2021 and permanently scheduled in 2023. N-propionitrile chlorphine, better known as cychlorphine, entered the news cycle earlier in 2026 and isn’t leaving anytime soon, as there is nothing media outlets love more than something they can call 10 times stronger than fentanyl. Since it was first identified in 2022, cychlorphine has been detected approximately 230 times, either in drugs seized by law enforcement or in post-mortem toxicology testing.

Spirochlorphine has been detected about 36 times in the United States. 5,6-dichloro desmethylchlorphine has been detected twice, and is characterized as much less potent than fentanyl. 5,6-dichloro brorphine has also only been detected twice, and unlike the other three orphines has never been detected in an overdose.

“These four synthetic opioids are pharmacologically similar to other synthetic opioids controlled under the CSA, such as brorphine, fentanyl, morphine, and other mu-opioid receptor agonists,” the DEA stated in its notice for orphine analogs. “Due to these pharmacological similarities, the use of these four synthetic opioids presents a high risk of abuse and may negatively affect users and their communities.”

Morphine is a plant-based opioid, but who cares. No amount of Department of Justice funding appropriated for fentanyl awareness campaigns can keep the DEA from throwing its own propaganda out the window whenever the situation calls for something else. Sure, fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction and a threat like nothing the nation has ever faced before, so unprecedented in its lethality that the brave men and women of the DEA put their lives on the line just by handling it through a HazMat suit, but also all opioids are the same. (Except kratom.)

7-OH refers to a synthetically concentrated form of the active compound in the kratom plant. The Trump administration has recently been signaling that kratom is on its way to being regulated, and accordingly the DEA notice makes clear that it’s only concerned with concentrated 7-OH.

The DEA stated that “the significance of 7-hydroxymitragynine abuse is demonstrated by an increasing volume of calls to poison control centers,” and that 165 exposure cases were reported in 2025. About one-third of the reports involving 7-OH and no other substances “resulted in serious health problems,” and about two-thirds were treated at a health care facility.

This kind of thing is so annoying. The volume of poison control calls about 7-OH increased in 2025 because that spring the substance got its own data codes in the National Poison Data System, which makes that data easier to track, and because that July the FDA made a huge deal about recommending 7-OH for Schedule I, so more people had heard of it who hadn’t before. Poison control data is self-reported. There is no confirmatory testing. Being treated at a health care facility means people panicked and went to the emergency room as a precaution. The “serious health problems” are nausea, sweating, rapid heart rate and a handful of other symptoms that would be consistent with, say, a panic attack.

This isn’t to say that none of the data reflect people who really were exposed to 7-OH and really did have physical symptoms as a result. But it does strongly recall a phenomenon seen with law enforcement and corrections officers across the country when they think they touched fentanyl or synthetic cannabinoids—they panic, Narcan themselves and go to an emergency room as a precaution, and the department they work for puts out a statement about how they had to be hospitalized and nearly died.

The DEA essentially used the same argument for 7-OH as it did for orphines. “To date, the safety profile of these concentrated products in humans remains unknown because no controlled clinical trials have been conducted to establish safe consumption limits or standardized dosing,” the agency wrote in its 7-OH notice. “Preclinical data indicates that 7-hydroxymitragynine carries a high abuse potential with safety risks, including tolerance, dependence, and respiratory depression, which are comparable to those of classic opioid analgesics.”

Temporary scheduling orders are good for up to three years, but their expiration dates are functionally meaningless because they can simply be extended again and again, if that suits DEA interests more than permanent scheduling.

For the DEA to permanently schedule anything, there’s a long process of reviewing the medical and scientific evidence in the context of eight different rulemaking criteria, plus there’s some disagreement as to whether the agency can still put a substance in Schedule I if the Food and Drug Administration finds that isn’t warranted. Congress also has the power to schedule drugs via passing legislation, but this tends to move slowly, too. 

Temporary scheduling, on the other hand, is something the agency can do without anyone else’s input, and using just three of the eight criteria: “history and current pattern of abuse”; “scope, duration and significance of abuse”; and “[w]hat, if any, risk there is to the public health.” As soon as a given substance is in the CSA, people caught with it can be prosecuted accordingly.

There is no mechanism to temporarily ban a substance under schedules II through V; all temporary scheduling is automatically Schedule I. Though Schedule I is often portrayed as the category for the drugs we know are the most dangerous, in reality it’s the category for the drugs we know nothing about. 

All these novel synthetic drugs keep getting emergency-banned not because each new analog is deadlier than the last, but because the easiest way for the DEA to get more substances into Schedule I—and subject to all the criminal penalties that come with that—is to grab whatever’s just come through the door. 7-OH has taken a little longer, but most synthetic opioids aren’t complicated by the fact that President Donald Trump has embraced lobbyists who want to regulate a different opioid that’s closely related.

A substance doesn’t have to meet Schedule I criteria—“high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision”—for the DEA to put it there temporarily. But the agency always emphasizes how substances like 7-OH and cychlorphine fit the Schedule I criteria; it’s such an easy way to legitimize what it’s doing.

There is no actual definition of “potential for abuse.” So as long as the DEA can show that a substance exists, and is an opioid, then it has potential for abuse. Emergency scheduling orders always describe how the agency painstakingly asked around and learned that, as it turns out, there is no currently accepted medical use and no one is currently engaged in research to explore whether this emerging substance has medical potential.

“The absence of clinical evidence to support vendor health claims is deeply concerning,” the DEA wrote in its 7-OH notice. “Consequently, 7-hydroxymitragynine products sold as unregulated dietary supplements pose significant health risks, as essential information regarding their purity, identity, quantity and long-term safety remain unknown.”

And DEA has made sure it’ll stay that way. Once a substance is in Schedule I, it’s almost impossible for most researchers to access. There are never any FDA-approved uses for a substance that just emerged.

Top image via National Institute on Drug Abuse. First inset image (cropped) via San Diego County. Second inset image (cropped) via Ohio Board of Pharmacy.

The post Of Course 7-OH and Cychlorphine Fit Schedule I Criteria. All New Drugs Do. appeared first on Filter.

On June 24, the House Committee on Homeland Security completed its review of HR 8535, also known as the Measuring Illicit Fentanyl Trafficking Act, and sent it forward to the full chamber by a vote of 30-0. It would require Customs and Border Protection and all other DHS entities involved in fentanyl interdiction to “collaborate and share relevant information and data relating to the detection, deterrence, and seizure of fentanyl”; “identify any barriers to sharing relevant information and data”; and “establish performance metrics relating to the detection, deterrence, and seizure of fentanyl.” 

Though this covers department-wide data access and the creation of performance metrics, it doesn’t mention the data collection program itself. It’s not clear whether DHS has yet created it. In response to Filter’s inquiry about the status of the program, an ICE representative stated that for “operational security reasons, ICE does not disclose law enforcement sensitive details.”

“Fentanyl remains the leading driver of drug overdose deaths in the United States,” the office of sponsor Rep. James Walkinshaw (D) stated in April, when HR 8535 was introduced. “Without consistent metrics and coordination across CBP, ICE, and other DHS components, it is difficult to assess what is working and where resources should be directed.”

That announcement was also ambiguous about the data program’s status, stating that the legislation would “ensure full implementation of the assessment program.” This isn’t mentioned in the legislation itself.

Nominally, the goals of DHS fentanyl-related operations are to reduce the supply of fentanyl entering the US and disrupt the market, as well as to disrupt global fentanyl production and supply chains in order “to halt the flow of fentanyl and their precursor chemicals and save lives.”

The mandatory data collection program was imposed via the Department of Defense budget, formally called the James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023. It required an accompanying audit by the Government Accountability Office, which in September 2025 revealed that DHS had “limited” ability to understand the actual effects of its actions. 

In 2025, DHS had agreed to get the program up and running, as it was already required to do by law, as well as to implement some sort of internal mechanism ensuring that whoever got stuck with the task of making the program had access to the relevant data from all DHS components, not just their own. It estimated completion by July 31, 2026.

It also agreed to develop its own performance goals and measures—it had been borrowing the National Security Council’s, which are broader—during its annual “measure improvement process,” estimating they’d be ready by October 31, 2026.

The deadline imposed by HR 8535 would be one year from enactment, which would mean late 2027 at the earliest.

On June 24, GAO released a report identifying areas for improvement in DHS border security metrics reporting, which include the volume of drugs seized at ports of entry. It stated that it was not making any new recommendations, as it was still on DHS to implement six out of the eight it had already made dating back to 2019.

Update, July 6: This article has been edited to include comment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Top image (cropped) via Government Accountability Office. Inset image via Customs and Border Protection.

The post DHS Still Doesn’t Know What Its Fentanyl Seizures Actually Do appeared first on Filter.

On June 17, the European Commission’s proposal, calling for a tax hike on all nicotine products irrespective of risk profile, was heavily defeated by 439 votes to 181. Earlier that day, a report from the parliament’s economic and monetary committee (ECON) report—calling for relatively scaled-down tax increases on alternative nicotine products, based on a “less harm, lower tax” principle—had also been rejected, but by a much narrower margin: 308 in favor and 320 against.

At stake is the revision of the EU Tobacco Taxation Directive (TTD) to include newer nicotine products, which will affect people’s access to tobacco harm reduction in the world’s highest-smoking region.

Tobacco harm reduction advocates are generally united in condemning taxation levels that could reduce people’s incentive to switch from deadly products to safer ones. But given the nuances of the ECON report, they have expressed differing views on that vote.

Some unequivocally welcomed the rejections of a “misguided attempt to impose higher taxes” on safer nicotine products. Others have accused the EU of prioritizing “politics over public health” by rejecting the ECON report, because of its “recognition that different nicotine products carry different levels of risk”—a groundbreaking acknowledgement by EU standards—and despite its proposal of a tax hike on vapes.

The European Commission proposal has long been criticized for excessive tax increases that advocates say would dissuade switching and boost illicit markets, while failing to recognize the huge risk differences between combustible and non-combustible products. The ECON report sought to address some of these concerns.

“This means almost half of the EU parliament actually has a positive opinion on harm reduction products that are on the market now.”

To add to the confusion, observers note that a parliament member’s (MEP) stance on tobacco harm reduction might not be the only motivation behind each vote. The Swedish parliamentary delegation, for instance, voted against the ECON report. Sweden has achieved the world’s lowest smoking rate due to snus and nicotine pouches, so those MEPs probably didn’t object to the relative-risk language. But Sweden also has an election coming up, so a likely factor is that any kind of tax increase on popular products may not be conducive to winning votes.

Stefan Mathisson, editor-in-chief of Vejpkollen, a tobacco harm reduction-oriented publication in Sweden, was in favor of the ECON report, and said the “close call” of the vote makes him feel hopeful.

“This means almost half of the EU parliament actually has a positive opinion on harm reduction products that are on the market now,” he told Filter.

“Even though this feels like a backlash in the short term,” he continued, “it also means the pressure and advocacy from consumers, scientists, as well as industry, actually has an impact on MEPs.”

Mathisson concluded that he believes this “bodes well” for upcoming negotiations over revisions to the Tobacco Products Directive, which regulates nicotine products across the EU.

Whatever advocates’ views on the implications for future EU nicotine policy, it should be remembered that the parliament’s opinion here is non-binding.

“This is a tax matter; the [European] Council must pass it unanimously and is only required to obtain an opinion from Parliament,” Peter Beckett, an EU policy expert and co-founder of the Clearing The Air blog, told Filter. “Parliament gave its opinion in its resolution, and that’s it.”

The European Council, made up of ministers from the 27 member states, will now have the job of reaching a consensus on nicotine tax rates before adopting a directive.

But Beckett shares Mathisson’s view that the voting has significance as a litmus test—and that both the split on the ECON report and the emphatic rejection of the European Commission proposal indicate that numerous MEPs do recognize tobacco harm reduction.

Photograph (cropped) by Marina Bauer via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0

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The scale of a drug seizure does not correlate to how successfully the government is fighting the drug war. According to the 18th Brazilian Public Security Yearbook, Federal Police cocaine seizures rose from 41.7 tons in 2013 to 72.5 tons in 2023. Across seizures recorded by federal, state and municipal police forces, we also see the same overall trend of quantities getting larger over the years.

The volume of cocaine seized does not matter. It remains a banned substance and so the market remains in the hands of drug-trafficking groups. Lucrative demand is unaffected. If this does turn out to be a record cocaine seizure, what will happen next? Another, larger seizure. More drugs. More records.

The cocaine market is booming. That’s what the gigantic size of these shipments tells us, not how law enforcement has dealt drug traffickers a devastating blow. In 2023, the global cocaine market grew faster than that of any other drug. The market is more geographically adaptive than ever.

Larger seizures can be a sign of stronger enforcement, yes. But it makes more sense that they’re a sign of a growing and resilient supply pipeline. It’s not as if shipments have always been this size, and the government didn’t crack down on them until now. If the record keeps being broken because the market keeps getting bigger, then these seizures are documenting that expansion, not stopping it. 

Seized shipment of cocaine in Honduras, 2014

I am not suggesting that seizures have zero effect. They can create frictions, delays, losses and rerouting costs. But the available evidence gives little support to the fantasy that busts and arrests meaningfully curb the global drug trade. 

“No matter how impressive the seizures look, it makes absolutely no difference to the drug supply,” as former undercover police officer Neil Woods, now of Law Enforcement Action Partnership (LEAP),  said in 2021. “Not only do we never decrease the drug supply, these busts actively increase violence.”  

A 2025 RAND Europe systematic review commissioned by the UK Home Office added more data to support this, finding that drug interdiction is associated more with increased violence than decreased violence.

Policing the drug war just makes it deadlier. The mechanism is not mysterious: Remove product, arrest operators, destabilize distribution chains, and thereby create business disputes. The market reconstitutes itself with more harm than before. The state then presents the next seizure as another sign of progress, as if whack-a-mole were a serious grand strategy.

The Brazilian Federal Revenue Authority and the Federal Police will pat themselves on the back. Cameras will film the timber, the uniforms, the triumphant statements, and sell us the fantasy that this is how violent trafficking groups are defeated. What they will show us is not victory, but the familiar choreography of prohibition: Roll a boulder uphill. Pour water into a sieve. Watch the market adapt. Get more federal funding to do more of the same. This is the wrong answer. It’s high time for a serious discussion on the legal regulation of cocaine.   

Top image via Drug Enforcement Administration. Inset image via Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

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Orphines are a class of synthetic opioid, like fentanyls or nitazenes. (They are separate from morphine, which is a plant-based substance derived from opium poppy, as well as from buprenorphine, which is semi-synthetic.) The first orphine identified in the United States drug supply was brorphine in 2020. But cychlorphine was the first to really attract media attention, after it began showing up in overdose toxicology around mid-2025. The Center for Forensic Science Research & Education (CFSRE) attributes this directly to China’s July 2025 crackdown on nitazenes.

Like with fentanyl analogs, nitazenes and whatever novel synthetic opioid will be discovered in the drug supply next, media has claimed that orphines are many times more potent than fentanyl even though their potency is largely unknown, and can also be less than that of fentanyl. For example, CFSRE characterizes 5,6-Dichloro Desmethylchlorphine as much less potent than fentanyl—about on par with morphine, and associated with “less respiratory depression compared to other opioid agonists.”

The commonly cited claim that cychlorphine is 10 times more potent comes from petri-dish data, not real-world overdose data involving humans, though of course that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. It’s reasonable to assume that cychlorphine is more potent than fentanyl. But it’s not driving or escalating the overdose crisis so much as it’s just the latest manifestation of an increasingly harsh drug war, one that continues to move the unregulated supply beyond just fentanyl.

ONDCP DRUG THREAT NOTICE: Cychlorphine, a synthetic opioid involved in at least 55 deaths, has potential to spread across Nation. Read more pic.twitter.com/1fVxMLppYP

— ONDCP (@ONDCP) April 30, 2026

None of the headlines and law enforcement bulletins urging the public to watch out for cychlorphine actually give people any information they can use. The ones that say cychlorphine does respond to Narcan are a little better than the ones that say its high potency makes it “Narcan-resistant,” but it’s not like anyone responding to an overdose in real life knows whether cychlorphine is involved—or needs to, in that moment. The fixation with cychlorphine and with novel synthetic opioids in general has nothing to do with public health. It exists entirely because anything that can be described as “more dangerous than fentanyl” is a huge asset in headlines and reelection campaigns.

“I think my biggest concern with this is we might be seeing the early stages of what might become the next opioid epidemic,” Dr. Timlin Glaser with Arkansas Poison Center told KATV, speculating that cychlorphine may replace fentanyl the way fentanyl has replaced heroin. There is no particular reason to be concerned with this.

In April, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson wrote to the Food and Drug Administration urging the agency to review cychlorphine for placement under Schedule I in order to stave off “another wave of avoidable loss.” Brorphine, which was temporarily scheduled in the Controlled Substances Act in 2021 and permanently scheduled in 2023, is so far the only orphine in the CSA. But it probably won’t be for long.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is pushing for a state-level ban, claiming that cychlorphine is often pressed into counterfeit MDMA pills, in addition to pharmaceuticals. Cychlorphine has been suggested for expedited scheduling in Virginia. In March, Kentucky introduced legislation that would not only ban cychlorphine and establish first-degree manslaughter charges for distribution cases linked to overdose deaths, but disqualify defendants from pretrial diversion and make them ineligible for parole or other forms of early release until they’d served 85 percent of their sentence. Currently these terms only apply to fentanyl-related cases.

The Kentucky Department of Corrections projected that bill would result in county jails filling up with more overflow from the prison population, because longer sentences “ultimately decrease prison bed space.”

#AnalysisAlert: New orphine detected! DEA found 5-chloro desmethyl chlorphine in a Knoxville, TN seizure—never before seen in NFLIS. Sample was 34% pure. Watch for this emerging synthetic opioid in the illicit supply. @TheJusticeDept #DEAForensicshttps://t.co/Jq4YxdRxmo pic.twitter.com/f7J0DRjhGv

— DEA HQ (@DEAHQ) May 27, 2026

Recently the Knoxville Police Department seized a sample of white powder that the DEA has identified as an even newer orphine, 5-chloro desmethyl chlorphine (not to be confused with 5,6-Dichloro Desmethylchlorphine).

“An unknown material was submitted to the DEA Special Testing and Research Laboratory through the DEA Overdose Surveillance Exchange (DOSE) program,” the agency stated in a public alert. “It was found to contain 5-chloro desmethyl chlorphine with an estimated 34% purity. This is the first time 5-chloro desmethyl chlorphine has been identified by DEA and it has not been previously reported in the National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS).”

At publication time NFLIS hadn’t been updated since April, so 5-chloro desmethyl chlorphine has not yet been added to the reference library. Nothing is yet known about its potency, but it’ll inevitably be used in service of the same larger narrative around orphines.

The more panic there is around cychlorphine, the more medical examiners and county coroners will pursue lab testing to identify it, and the more jurisdictions will report a rising number of cychlorphine-involved deaths. The DEA and local law enforcement will comb through the cell phones of the people who died, and throw a huge amount of money into surveillance and undercover operations so that street-level sellers who don’t know any more about cychlorphine than the people they sold it to can be prosecuted for manslaughter. Legislators will introduce proposals for mandatory life sentences—maybe the death penalty—Congress will propose federal scheduling, a dozen states will place cychlorphine under Schedule I of their own CSA and the DEA will at some point issue a temporary scheduling order while the White House vows to eradicate cychlorphine-associated supply chains. After a few more international crackdowns on a few more precursor chemicals, while harm reduction groups adjust their overdose response to whatever new large animal sedative has replaced medetomidine by then, some even newer kind of synthetic opioid will show up. Definitely way more potent and scary than fentanyl.

Image (cropped) via Drug Enforcement Administration/Twitter

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