July 30, 2026

Photo credit: Joe Doll/Manhattan Institute

California Governor Gavin Newsom has long supported “harm reduction” policies, which claim that making drug use easier can also make it safer. Newsom’s Department of Health has acted on that premise, endorsing the distribution of glass pipes, syringes, and “[c]ontainers for mixing injectable drugs.” Earlier this year, Newsom argued that harm reduction increases the likelihood that an addict will seek treatment for substance abuse.

Christopher Rufo and Austen Hufford visited the Skid Row Care Campus, a homeless-services site in Los Angeles County, to see how this works in practice. They found that instead of encouraging addicts to get clean, the program hands out free paraphernalia—no questions asked.

“We entered campus and found a walk-up counter, where an attendant sat before shelves of drug paraphernalia,” they write. “Users come to this counter to get free needles and crack pipes, with which they can inject or smoke hard drugs. ‘What can I get you?’ he asked. ‘We have oil burners, we have spray shooters, we have socks, we have petroleum jelly.’”

Rufo and Hufford were able to get syringes, drug-testing strips, and crack pipes during several visits. One worker told them that they “wouldn’t be bothered” if they got high outside, unless they overdosed.

Read more about what they saw.

In 1996, then-President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law, championing work, mainstream values, and public order.

Thirty years later, new Manhattan Institute polling finds that the American public still largely supports the Clinton formula. Nearly three-quarters of voters support requiring welfare recipients to show that they are seeking work. And, surprisingly, a majority of Democrats and left-leaning voters support this requirement. Further, 80 percent of voters across every demographic and policial subgroup would prefer to provide benefits in the form of housing, food, and health care, rather than through unrestricted cash transfers.

“Taken together, the findings describe a coherent philosophy of welfare. Americans favor meaningful support for those who need it, conditioned on work where possible, coupled with an evenhanded approach to combatting fraud and abuse,” Jesse Arm and Sean Speer write. “That is, in fact, the bargain Clinton brokered a generation ago.”

Read more about the poll’s findings.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have exploded in popularity in recent years. One firm estimates that by 2030, the volume of contracts traded on the markets will hit $1 trillion.

Prediction markets are unique in that, even though most bets are sports-related, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversees them—not the states, which regulate sports books like DraftKings and FanDuel.

“As a result, prediction markets are operating with impunity in states where sports betting is banned, as well as not always following the rules imposed by states where sports betting is legal (selling to those over 18 but under 21, for example),” Charles Fain Lehman explains. “The situation has yielded an unpleasant legal feud. States have sued the markets; some are even passing laws to criminalize operating a prediction market. The prediction markets are suing back, as is the CFTC, alleging that the states are undermining its federal authority.”

Read more.

Back in 2003, two researchers claimed that school suspensions and expulsions were funneling students—primarily black and Latino boys—into the justice system. They called it the “school-to-prison pipeline,” and the phrase stuck. Schools changed their approach to discipline, replacing suspensions with mental-health-oriented approaches like “trauma-informed” practices and “restorative justice.” The federal government even embraced the idea that disparities in discipline must be a sign of problematic punishment.

“This view overlooks a basic behavioral principle: that consequences shape what children do next,” Jennifer Weber and Carolyn D. Gorman write. “Some consequences make a behavior less likely—that’s punishment.”

Schools’ investment in non-disciplinary approaches hasn’t paid off. New York City, for instance, began its restorative justice programs in 2015, spending about $97 million over the decade. And yet, district schools issued 35,963 disciplinary removals and suspensions during the 2024–25 school year.

“The surest way to keep a student out of prison has never been a particular punishment, or the absence of one,” Weber and Gorman point out. “It is a school that teaches rules, expectations, and how to belong.”