Insights
Policy shifts, procurement decisions, emerging adulterants, and what the data actually says. Written for the people procuring, deploying, and operating drug-checking programs at scale.
What three years of medetomidine, the Ohio Executive Order, and a half-dozen state procurement cycles have actually produced. A snapshot of where the market is, what is selling, and where the gaps remain.
Read the report →A phone camera, a printed reference key, and a small inference model are quietly changing how a rapid screen behaves in clinics that do not have a hematology lab down the hall.
Read the field report →Amate and Lieberman's 2026 paper shows that certain commercial strips recognize only one enantiomer of medetomidine, halving real-world sensitivity. The procurement implication is unambiguous.
Read the brief →The Lieberman group's 2024 LQAS protocol and the AOAC standards released in late 2025 now give buyers and suppliers a shared framework for verifying lot quality before strips reach the field.
Read the brief →The everyday adulterant that exposes which fentanyl strips can be trusted and which cannot. A 2025 study quietly redefined the interference panel every QA program should be running.
Read the brief →Hayes and Lieberman's 251-compound benchmark exposed the question procurement should be asking: not "how sensitive is this strip," but "which structural classes does it actually see."
Read the analysis →A class of compounds designed to evade scheduling has settled into the unregulated supply. The strip that catches it has to do work the chemistry was not originally optimized for.
Read the brief →Governor DeWine's October 2025 order explicitly named medetomidine, nitazene, and benzodiazepine test strips alongside fentanyl. The first state to do so. We read the order and what it means for procurement officers in other states.
Read the analysis →A buyers' club that started by aggregating syringe orders is now the most efficient national distribution channel for drug-checking strips. The procurement math has changed.
Read the analysis →A combination respiratory antigen test that returns three results in fifteen minutes does something a single-target swab cannot. The clinical implication is bigger than the workflow change.
Read the brief →From near-zero detection in early 2024 to 87% of Philadelphia drug samples by November. A veterinary tranquilizer, more potent than xylazine, has reshaped the testing portfolio every harm reduction program needs to carry.
Read the field report →Sensitivity and specificity are not the limiting factors. Cold chain, reader training, ambient humidity, and what happens after a positive screen are the real design constraints.
Read the brief →A combined two-analyte strip is not just a packaging convenience. It changes the training, the procurement spec, and the field workflow in ways the single-analyte programs were not built for.
Read the brief →The first wave of opioid settlement payments has reached state treasuries. We look at how Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey are channeling the money toward harm reduction supplies, and where the procurement bottlenecks are appearing.
Read the brief →