Sheila Vakharia PhD MSW

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...

8/27 - Sheila Vakharia presents "The Harm Reduction Gap" w/ the Maryland Alliance for Sensible Drug Policy by Red Emma's Get tickets and support Red Emma's by becoming a member

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...

Sheila Vakharia presents "The Harm Reduction Gap" w/ the Maryland Alliance for Sensible Drug Policy This long-awaited book teaches how harm reduction can be a safety net for people with substance use disorders that our current addiction treatment rejects, abandons, and leaves behind.

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...

Exclusive: Trump team withholds $140 million budgeted for fentanyl fight Threats to $140 million in funds for public health departments battling fentanyl overdoses comes as some experts see the addiction safety net unraveling.

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...

Police in Ontario Increasingly Obstruct Harm Reduction Service Delivery Police surveillance and interference block life-saving care as the province becomes more hostile to harm reduction, our study shows.

"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!

Upended by Meth, Some Communities Are Paying Users to Quit

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...

Harm Reduction Approaches with Adolescents Who Use Substances Amazon.com: Harm Reduction Approaches with Adolescents Who Use Substances: 9781032940847: Reiman, Amanda, Lessin, Barry: Books

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.

Feds Share Prison Contraband Data They May Not Have Thought Through A new USSC report awkwardly doesn't include synthetic cannabinoids, despite the so-called epidemic of these substances pouring into prisons.

"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."

Prisons Need Their Own Post Offices, Not That We'll Ever Get Them Courts might give prison mail a three-day grace period, but they won't believe it took a month for your mail to make it to the post office.

"Courts might give prison mail a three-day grace period, but they won't believe it took a month for your mail to make it to the post office."

My heart is with my Iranian friends and their families. May everyone live.

Graph titled: Disciplinary write-ups are common and usually involve "minor" violations, but they almost always lead to harsh punishments

One of the cruelest, most unproductive disciplinary punishments prisons often turn to is taking away visitation

Here's the truth: Visitation has positive impacts for everyone – better health, reduced recidivism, and improvement in school. It should be a right, not a "privilege"

I was anti-war in 2003 when I was 21 and had no social media. Even then, I knew there were no WMDs. This time is no different.

Graph showing that more than 1 in 3 people in state prison were first arrested before their 16th birthday

More than 1 in 3 people in state prisons were first arrested before their 16th birthday. The criminalization of youth has life-altering consequences.

Shouldn't the US be investing in youth instead of locking them up?

Thanks for tuning in to our #CPDD2025 reads! Which article was your favorite? Consider publishing your next substance use related article in AJDAA!

Our harm reduction family continues to experience tremendous loss.

I am deeply saddened by the loss of Naomi Burke-Shyne and Peter Krykant.

Both made a tremendous impact in the short time they were with us. I wish we had more time with both.

May we be their continuation.

If you know (or are) an Early Career Researcher heading to #CPDD2025 on Saturday, be sure to swing by our panel to learn about different career paths! I'll talk about my journey to policy advocacy. Swing by Bayside Ballroom A at 2:45pm!

Graph showing that people released from federal prison earned $269 per week in the first year of release, vs the general population which made $507 per week.

Formerly incarcerated people earn far less than the general population – about 53% of the median US worker’s wage.

Reentry is difficult in and of itself. How is anyone supposed to successfully navigate it without financial stability?

The Rise of Psychedelic Capitalism | The Tyee Big business sees a gold rush. What about equity, access and Indigenous knowledge?

"Community-controlled decriminalization is a better path to mainstreaming psychedelics than relinquishing power to the medical industry and pharmaceutical cartels that provide monopolized services to primarily affluent customers."

Read more: thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

THREAD. A lot of attention is rightly going to Medicaid cuts and other very bad things in Trump's bill passed by the House, but there's something else that isn't getting enough attention, that is very difficult to find in any news coverage, but that will fundamentally alter life for all of us.

I walked by when 'Chucky' was on the tv in my parents' room. I was never the same.

This comment period ends today, 5/23, at 11:59 pm ET. Please do comment asap if you believe the government should allow us to get COVID vaccinations. I can't believe we even have to petition them about this, but here we are.

House Passes Trump’s Domestic Policy Bill, Overcoming Last-Minute Resistance

Absolutely infuriating. These cuts are putting our most vulnerable at risk while enriching those who need it the least. There's a reason why it happened in the middle of the night. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/u...

Fentanyl Test Strip Use and Overdose Risk Reduction Among People Who Use Drugs This cohort study evaluates whether self-reported baseline fentanyl test strip use among people who use drugs was associated with overdose risk reduction behaviors and nonfatal overdose over a 28-day ...

My latest research: we found baseline fentanyl test strip (FTS) use was associated with greater engagement in overdose risk reduction behaviors but not with the risk of nonfatal overdose. In this population, using FTS did not lead to more risk taking behavior jamanetwork.com/journals/jam...

US drug overdose deaths saw an unprecedented drop in 2024, but federal cuts could threaten momentum | CNN Drug overdose deaths in the United States made an unprecedented drop to the lowest they’ve been in five years, according to a new federal government estimate released Wednesday.

Our letter with 325 signatures of acadmics across the US was featured in a CNN story today about overdose death reductions and how this trend could be reversed if we don't preserve federal funding for livesaving services www.cnn.com/2025/05/14/h...

YouTube video by DPA Voices Panel 3: Understanding Drug Markets

ICYMI- The third panel in our "New Drugs and New Markets" series is now available online. We discussed the complexities of drug markets and their impacts on health and safety. Check it out!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CR-V...

Trump’s Focus on Punishing Drug Dealers May Hurt Drug Users Trying to Quit

Our faculty sign-on letter against federal funding cuts also got some coverage in the New York Times last night www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/h...

Experts warn Congress cuts to addiction funding will mean more overdose deaths A broad coalition of addiction experts wants Congress to maintain healthcare funding for the nation's response to fentanyl and other street drugs.

This Open Letter from addiction and mental health experts was sent late Monday evening to congress! Major to SAMHSA, CDC and HRSA are unacceptable #fentanyl
@jencarroll.bsky.social @chadsabora.bsky.social @brownpublichealth.bsky.social
@defendpublichealth.bsky.social
www.npr.org/2025/05/13/n...