The White House's murderous campaign against "drug boats" continues, a dangerous new contaminant is making its way into the nation's illicit opioid markets, and more. 

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Marijuana Policy

DEA Judge Releases Transcripts for Marijuana Rescheduling Hearing. DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Derek Julius on Tuesday released the fully corrected transcripts of the 11-day marijuana rescheduling hearing earlier this summer. The move comes as he prepares to make a final recommendation to DEA Administrator Terry Cole on rescheduling. 

The release makes more than 2,500 pages of transcripts from the DEA marijuana rescheduling hearing that ended on July 15 at DEA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, available to the public. 

With the DEA acting as the proponent for a proposed rule to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, the hearing provided the opportunity for the agency and seven anti-rescheduling parties to argue the rule. 

Here are the transcripts for each day’s proceedings:

• Transcript Day 1
• Transcript Day 2
• Transcript Day 3
• Transcript Day 4
• Transcript Day 5
• Transcript Day 6
• Transcript Day 7
• Transcript Day 8
• Transcript Day 9
• Transcript Day 10
• Transcript Day 11

Opiates and Opioids

Dangerous New Sedative Medetomidine Showing Up in Illicit Opioid Supply. Medetomidine, a potent animal tranquilizer known on the street as "Rhino tranq," is increasingly showing up in the illicit opioid supply and has now surpassed another potent tranquilizer, xylazine, as a favored contaminant.  

Medetomidine is not approved for any human medical use. An alpha-2 adrenergic receptor agonist, it is used in veterinary medicine for sedation and pain reduction by suppressing norepinephrine release, which reduces sympathetic nervous system activity. While similar in action to xylazine, it is 200-300 times stronger and can provoke life-threatening central nervous system depression and respiratory depression. Opioid overdose reversal drugs such as naloxone do not work on medetomidine. 

The substance is increasingly found in American illicit drug markets, with some 2,600 reports from labs and law enforcement in 2024 jumping to more than 8,200 reports last year, a more than three-fold year-over-year increase. 

The drug supply in major cities is awash with medetomidine. First widely detected in 2024, by 2025 it was showing up in 87-90 percent of opioid samples from public health agencies and street drug laboratories in major cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, and San Francisco. In  New York City, the percent of street opioid samples containing "Rhino tranq" jumped from 25 percent in 2024 to 44 percent last year. It is linked to 152 overdose deaths in the city.

Foreign Policy

Serial Killers Strike Again in Caribbean, Leaving Four Dead in "Drug Boat" Attack. The US military reported Tuesday that for the second time in two days it had struck an alleged drug trafficking vessel, this time in the Caribbean, with a death toll of four. On Monday, the US military struck an alleged drug trafficking vessel in the Eastern Pacific, leaving two dead. 

 US Southern Command said the boat was traveling through "established narco-trafficking routes" and that "confirmed intelligence revealed the vessel’s active involvement in narco-trafficking." But it did not provide any evidence to back up its claims. 

"We will hunt, disrupt, and defeat these narco-terrorist networks,” said SouthCom commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan. "SOUTHCOM is resolved to neutralizing cartel terror and violence throughout the region and into the US homeland,” he added. 

While the consensus among human rights and US and international law experts is that the attacks are unlawful—amounting to murder under US domestic law and crimes against humanity under international law—the Trump administration maintains that by the act of naming drug trafficking organizations as "narco-terrorists" allows it to kill members of those groups as enemy combatants.