fraudulent addiction treatment will remain common until we actually have standards of care that don't allow billing for "faith based" approaches led by poorly trained peers. www.propublica.org/article/kent... if you wouldn't pay for it for depression or cancer, you shouldn't pay for it for addiction
Graph titled: Why are so many people detained in jails before trial? They're not wealthy enough to afford money bail.
70% of all people in jails are legally innocent. Many of them are held behind bars simply because they cannot afford bail.
Money bail perpetuates an endless cycle of poverty and jail time.
“What you see already is the immediate and extremely dangerous policy of bombing regions without even showing any pretense of evidence that you’re actually hurting the drug trade” www.salon.com/2026/03/31/t...
Infographic that says more than 40% of unhoused people booked into jail were booked again within the year
A single day in jail can derail someone's life – imagine the horrific consequences of multiple bookings in a single year.
As we enter 2026, it's time for the U.S. to embrace housing-first solutions, not increased policing & criminalization.
1. It was not an accident.
2. It was not a staffer.
3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia.
4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares.
5. His base agrees with him.
6. He will do it again.
7. No one in power will hold him accountable.
Devastating. Infuriating. Murderous.
These cruel funding cuts will destroy grassroots and treatment programs that are providing vital life-saving services to people who use drugs and those with addictions.
www.npr.org/2026/01/14/n...
Really excited for this new Congressional briefing series hosted by the Addiction Science Defense Network- Register to join their first session on January 13th 2:30-4pm EDT and share with your member of Congress so we can preserve federal funding!
www.npscoalition.org/congressiona...
"The expansion of coca cultivation is a direct
driver of deforestation in the Andean valleys
and the Colombian Amazon." - Learn more about how illegal coca cultivation and the drug war are driving climate and environmental disaster www.reformrestorerecover.org/evidence
“The media oftentimes relinquishes its role in public education and public awareness, instead fanning the flames of fear and hysteria that can lead to support for harsher penalties and more stigmatization,” says @myharmreduction.bsky.social.
objectivejournalism.org/2025/11/balt...
The HUGEST congratulations to my friend, colleague, hero @nabarund.bsky.social for being awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for his incredible harm reduction work and research. #MacFellow www.macfound.org/fellows/clas...
Hey Detroit! I will be doing a book talk on Tuesday, October 14th, alongside Kassandra Frederique and Valerie Kelley-Bonner. The event is 3-6 pm, and it is FREE. Simply register using the QR code on the flyer. Help spread the word!
SAVE THE DATE: Sept 25th 4:30-6pm EST
Join us for our September Drug Researchers' Roundtable with Drs. Cerda and Allen where they will discuss research on NYC's Overdose Prevention Centers and their impact on neighborhood conditions.
Register: bit.ly/Sep2025Roundtable
“They say they want to protect Americans from drugs, but their policies don’t match these words,” says Hanna Sharif-Kazemi as the administration talks up more drug-war strikes.
A new tracker helps quantify the damage to people who use drugs of domestic cuts, reports @tganeva.bsky.social:
"Our existing system subjects hundreds of thousands of legally innocent people per year to the horrors of incarceration"
@bailproject.org on the importance (and effectiveness!) of ending cash bail for @nytopinion.nytimes.com👇
SAVE THE DATE: Sept 25th 4:30-6pm EST
Join us for our September Drug Researchers' Roundtable with Drs. Cerda and Allen where they will discuss research on NYC's Overdose Prevention Centers and their impact on neighborhood conditions.
Register: bit.ly/Sep2025Roundtable
New episode with @myharmreduction.bsky.social all about the victims of bad drug policy we don't hear about and how to face the attacks on harm reduction. Find it on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, etc.
open.spotify.com/episode/2Lzx...
🚨🗞️ JOURNALISTS: As the criminalization of homelessness runs rampant in DC & across the country, it's more important than ever to rely on data to get the story right.
Here are some useful resources that can help you to fight through misinformation 🧵
DC will be the testing ground. Next up could be your city. Where do they go? No one knows. The point is to disappear people without addressing the root causes- most notably, our housing affordability crisis.
The book cover for Read This When Things Fall Apart: Letters to Activists in Crisis, Edited by Kelly Hayes. The book cover features an artistic rendering of a person with long hair wading into a body of water at night in a wilderness.
Hey fam, my new book, Read This When Things Fall Apart, comes out in three months. That means now is the critical window for preorders, which help get books on shelves, in libraries, and into the hands of the people who need them most. www.pilsencommunitybooks.com/item/vCQt68D...
In recent years, the life-saving opioid overdose reversal medications (OORMs), naloxone and nalmefene, have been lumped into an ideological concept of harm reduction which has been used to advocate for policies that are incompatible with federal laws and inconsistent with this Administration's priorities.
What an insult to our harm reduction movement and elders who fought so hard for naloxone and fentanyl test strip access.
Check out the atrocious language in the latest letter from SAMHSA claiming these tools are "not harm reduction."
www.samhsa.gov/sites/defaul...
The wonderful @myharmreduction.bsky.social will be at Red Emma's next month to talk about her book, "The Harm Reduction Gap." It's an excellent read, and I highly recommend attending the event.
Details:
withfriends.co/event/264441...
SAVE THE DATE: August 27th at 7pm Baltimore
I'll be doing an in-person book talk and signing at Red Emma's. Register and bring a friend! I would love to see you there.
redemmas.org/events/sheil...
This administration has prioritized punishment, penalties, tariffs, and border enforcement in the name of our loved ones who died of overdose.
All while gutting the very programs & strategies that are saving lives, and cutting the research for solutions.
www.npr.org/2025/07/16/n...
"An increasingly hostile political and legal environment appears to be directly translating into greater police interference with health services," write Liam Michaud & co-authors of their new study, for which Ontario service users and providers were interviewed:
Wow I'm so so sorry!
Appreciate this NYT coverage about Contingency Management, one of the most studied approaches to treating addiction- and one of our strongest tools to help people with stimulant use disorders.
Rewards, not punishment! www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/h...
People always ask me, "Sheila, but what about the kids?"
Now I can refer them to this great textbook.
Preorder your copy today!
It's by Amanda Reiman and Barry Lessin - "Harm Reduction Approaches with Adolescents who use Substances." www.amazon.com/Harm-Reducti...
Seeing some posts referring to Kilmar Abrego Garcia as being "kept safe" in jail. No one is safe in jail, fam. Incarceration strips years off people's lives and manufactures premature death. It's very important to understand this, especially now.
"False positives for synthetic cannabinoids can be used to sanction prisoners and to fuel clicky headlines; accuracy doesn't matter unless the results would need to hold up in court. Which may explain why synthetic cannabinoids have awkwardly disappeared from federal sentencing data."
