Alternet has a wrap-up of the year in (U.S.) drug policy. To summarize:

• The opioid overdose situation is still awful even compared to the height of the 1980s-90s crack epidemic, but does not seem to be getting any more awful. Deaths from heroine and prescription drugs have fallen, but fentanyl abuse has increased and kept the overall body count about the same as recent years.
• Cities including my own are moving forward on safe injection sites under medical supervision, which are the norm in many other developed countries, but the federal government is still against them.
• Sentencing disparities that used to disproportionately put people of color in prison are being reduced. Even the more blatantly racist of our two major political parties seems to be on board with this.
• Marijuana legalization at the state level continues to march on, and the federal government continues to look the other way.
• Industrial hemp became completely legal.
• Predictably, legalization advocates are moving on to other drugs like pschedelics.