Transparency Expands Fentanyl Test Strip Distribution Across California Under New $2M DHCS Contract

Transparency, the infrastructure organization behind Bunk Police and DanceSafe, has been selected as the operational partner on a two-year, $2 million California Department of Health Care Services contract to expand fentanyl test strip access statewide. Transparency is handling production, supply chain, and fulfillment, the operational backbone that makes statewide distribution possible.

This partnership is the direct result of Transparency taking over production and distribution for DanceSafe earlier this year. That transition built the operational capacity needed to pursue, and execute, a contract of this scale. Without infrastructure capable of meeting state-level manufacturing standards, fulfillment timelines, and compliance requirements, a contract like this doesn't move from award to execution.

This is one of the largest state-level commitments to drug checking we've seen, and it lands at a moment when access to fentanyl test strips is the difference between an overdose and a survivable night for a lot of people. We are grateful to have been able to step up and assist DanceSafe at this time to ensure contracts like this one remain fulfilled and people maintain access to harm reduction tools across the country.

What the Contract Does

Over the next two years, this contract funds the statewide distribution of fentanyl test strips, with Transparency handling production, supply chain, and fulfillment operations end to end. The strips are sourced from WHPM, the same supplier behind the strips Bunk Police and DanceSafe have stood behind for years.

Fentanyl contamination is no longer an edge case. It shows up in pressed pills, cocaine, MDMA, ketamine, and more, often without anyone knowing. This contract puts fentanyl test strips directly into the hands of Californians, harm reduction organizations, and partner networks across the state. Over the next two years, that access will quietly change outcomes. Overdoses prevented, people still at the table, and nights that don't end in a hospital.

What Transparency Brings to the Work

We've spent fifteen years building the infrastructure that makes a contract like this executable. Laboratory partnerships, manufacturing standards, vendor relationships, fulfillment systems shipping internationally, customer service, and regulatory compliance. It's the work most people never see behind a test strip, and it's the reason a contract of this scale can move from award to execution at all.

That infrastructure also extends to the people behind it. When Transparency took over operations for DanceSafe earlier this year, we brought their wholesale director onto our team in lieu of looming layoffs. His work, and the partner relationships he's built over years, are too valuable to the movement to lose. He still serves as the point of contact for DanceSafe's wholesale partners, same relationships, same continuity, now backed by upgraded technology, expanded fulfillment systems, and the operational capacity to handle larger contracts and institutional partnerships.

Better infrastructure for the people doing the work means more access for the communities they serve, more nonprofits, more public health agencies, more states able to fund harm reduction at scale.

What This Looks Like on the Ground

When the contract is fully executed, fentanyl test strips will move through this partnership into communities across California. The result is straightforward: more strips, in more hands, in more of the places where they make a difference.

A state agency making a multi-year, multi-million-dollar commitment to harm reduction is a hopeful signal, one worth naming. Even amid a difficult national conversation around drug policy and public health funding, government entities are still investing in the tools that keep people alive. California isn't alone in this, and we expect it won't be the last. That matters.

The Bigger Picture

For years, the conversation around drug checking has been stuck in the same loop: people who use substances deserve access to information about what they're taking, the tools to provide that information exist, and the systems to distribute them at scale have always been the bottleneck.

That bottleneck is what Transparency was built to remove. A state agency funding statewide distribution is a meaningful shift in the conversation, it treats fentanyl test strips as what they are, a public health tool, rather than as something to be tolerated at the margins. And it acknowledges, in practice, what harm reduction organizations have been saying for two decades: people are already engaging in this behavior, and safety comes from information and access.

If you're outside California and want access to fentanyl test strips, they're available directly through Bunk Police, along with the full set of drug checking tools and free resources we've built over the past fifteen years.