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Delaware health officials are piloting a first-of-its-kind drug test to protect people from xylazine, or tranq, a dangerous animal tranquilizer that has contaminated the Philadelphia region’s drug supply. The testing strips, small lengths of paper similar to a COVID-19 rapid test, can detect the presence of both xylazine and the synthetic opioid fentanyl in a drug sample, officials said. (Whelan, 7/5)

Newsom first became concerned about tranq about six months ago, he said, when he met with other governors for a conference and his East Coast counterparts warned that xylazine was responsible for a growing number of fatalities in their states. Increasingly, it’s being found in California, too. “We were asking our Border Patrol folks, and they, a number of months ago, said we started to see it on the Texas border, and now we’re seeing it in California,” Newsom said. “It’s moved very quickly.” (Bollag, 7/5)

The state of Nevada has reached a $285 million settlement with Walgreens regarding the pharmacy chain’s role in the opioid epidemic, the state’s top lawyer announced Wednesday. The last in a series of multiyear settlements with pharmaceutical companies, retailers and others, it pushes Nevada’s total anticipated payments stemming from opioid claims to $1.1 billion, state Attorney General Aaron Ford’s office said in a news release. Nevada is among numerous states that have reached settlements now totaling more than $50 billion nationwide. (7/5)

A physician with decades of experience working in emergency rooms in the southern West Virginia coalfields was on Wednesday named the first board director of a nonprofit tasked with distributing much of the state’s over $1 billion in opioid settlement money. Dr. Tony Kelly, an emergency physician with around 40 years of experience working in hospitals in historic coal mining communities like Beckley and Welch, will be the inaugural director of the 11-member West Virginia First Foundation board, according to unofficial results shared during a public meeting at the Raleigh County Courthouse in Beckley. Official results will be certified within a week. (Willingham, 7/5)

New Hampshire had begun to see progress in its efforts to reduce the number of people dying from opioids and other drugs. The state’s overdose death tally decreased two years in a row. But that was before the pandemic. Now the trendline has reversed. (Porter, 7/5)

After pleas from doctors and addiction experts, Gov. Ron DeSantis legalized the wide use of fentanyl test strips last week. The new law is a rare bipartisan victory that's relatively progressive, considering the strips are still considered illegal drug paraphernalia in half of U.S. states. (San Felice, 7/5)

Heather Beaubien doesn’t believe in rock bottom. Not when she dropped her son off at school in the morning and stopped at a liquor store five minutes later. Not during the moments she’d dig through clothing drawers for stashed drugs and liquor and light up with a Christmas-morning feeling upon finding it. And not when she went for months without a proper shower and found herself crawling naked to let the cops in at the door of her own home. (Salzman, 7/6)