After 10 days of talks, diplomats from 180 countries were unable to break their deadlock to finalize the world’s first treaty on plastic pollution in Geneva, Switzerland.

The summit, held at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, ended after an all-night contentious session on August 15, 2025.

According to Laurant Huber, Executive Director of Action on Smoking & Health,

“This breakdown is a direct result of the UN Environment Program’s failure to address conflicts of interest, allowing heavy interference from industry. ASH and our partners worked tirelessly to push back, pressing to keep the world’s most-littered plastic item — cigarette butts — on the treaty’s banned items list. . .

ASH will leverage another UN treaty — the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control — meeting this November, to keep fighting for a global ban on cigarette filters and stronger protections for health and the environment.”

Rehab, An American Scandal exposes the practices of drug treatment programs that subject patients to government surveillance and punitive laws, while exploiting patients for profits. The effect of these practices on mothers and their children is highlighted.

Shoshana Walter‘s new book addresses how corporate marketing practices shape the treatment of opioid dependence. She incorporates testimony from whistle-blowing drug representatives such as Gail Groves Scott and provides damning details regarding inadequate oversight by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Substance use treatment barriers are addressed in a research letter in JAMA Network Open. This study was highlighted in the February 13, 2025, issue of Helio Minute Newsletter.

As noted in a “perspective” commentary accompanying the study,

Of particular concern is the population with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), where many individuals in need of treatment do not seek it. Individuals with untreated OUD face a significantly increased risk for overdose death. Evidence-based treatments with medications like buprenorphine can reduce this risk by 50% to 75%, with benefits extending and accumulating the longer patients remain in treatment.

Purdue Pharma and Sackers reach new $7.4bn settlement resolving thousands of lawsuits alleging Oxycontin caused an opioid addiction crisis.

In the book Merchants of Doubt and in this video, Naomi Oreskes explained how corporations and proponents of a “neoliberal” political ideology (that discourages government regulation) created doubt about both tobacco science and climate science. The same scientists (funded by conservative organizations) who caused people to doubt whether tobacco causes illness also convinced people that burning fossil fuels has not warmed the planet.

Sent by Kelsey Romeo-Stuppy: This week, the U.S. Surgeon General issued a Report on “Eliminating Tobacco-Related Disease and Death: Addressing Disparities.” This is the 35th Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health since 1964, a series of instrumental reports that inspired the name of our organization: Action on Smoking and Health. 

ASH welcomes this report, which is written by Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, with many contributors including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and numerous highly-respected academics and scientists. ASH’s programs seek to address the issues directly highlighted in the Surgeon General’s report, so much so that our key issues were highlighted in the Overview that the Surgeon General’s office published.