National Night Out
On Tuesday, August 4, 2026, communities across the United States will celebrate National Night Out.
National Night Out (NNO) is an annual community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live. National Night Out enhances the relationship between neighbors and law enforcement while bringing back a true sense of community. Furthermore, it provides a great opportunity to bring police and neighbors together under positive circumstances.
DEA Community Outreach Specialists and other DEA employees participate in several NNO events.
To see if your community is part of National Night Out, visit About | National Night Out and scroll down to the U.S. map. To register an event, go to Registration | National Night Out.
Song for Charlie Collaboration Forum
 Song for Charlie’s next Collaboration Forum will include the latest national findings on youth drug perceptions, along with a brand-new way to empower young leaders in your community.
Date: Thursday, August 27, 2026
Time: 9:00am–10:00am PT / 12:00pm–1:00pm ET
Facilitators will share the third wave of Song for Charlie's national study with Breakwater Research, tracking how teens and parents navigate today's drug landscape —their trusted sources, knowledge gaps and coping mechanisms under pressure.
Song for Charlie will introduce its new self-directed Peer Educator Certification course, showing how young people can lead classroom presentations, host film screenings and advocate for prevention resources in their own schools.
Legislative Updates
 On Tuesday, July 21, the House Energy and Commerce Committee favorably reported out the following critical pieces of legislation to fight the fentanyl and synthetic drug crisis. These pieces of legislation now head to the House floor for a vote, potentially in September.
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HR1266 – The Combatting Xylazine Act: Would schedule xylazine as a Schedule III substance and give DEA tools that will allow us to track xylazine through the closed system of distribution, while allowing farmers, ranchers, and wildlife personnel the ability to continue using it as is.
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HR7970 – The STOP Nitazenes Act: This would class-wide schedule nitazenes, a powerful synthetic opioid, which has found to have no medical use. DEA has either temporarily or permanently scheduled 21 nitazenes, but drug traffickers continue to create new nitazenes, skirting the law.
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HR8005 – The Stop Pills That Kill Act: This would serialize pill presses and their critical parts, increase penalties for those importing or exporting pill presses when they are knowingly going to be used to make dangerous counterfeit pills, and requires the establishment and implementation of a plan to address the synthetic drug threat. This plan must include specific ways education and prevention will be increased.
We're Growing!
The Together for Families network now includes hundreds of organizations and individuals from across the United States. Please encourage families and community members concerned about substance use to sign up for updates.
Also, if you work with an organization that has a free resource, information or event that you want families to know about, encourage them to join the Together for Families network by e-mailing togetherforfamilies@dea.gov.
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