The Log
Archive
733 stories, newest first.
July 2026
- Jul 21Technology & Innovation
Lilly's $3.8B Psychedelic Bet Skips Past the People Who Need It Most
Eli Lilly's $3.8B AtaiBeckley acquisition is the largest Big Pharma bet on psychedelics yet — but the money is chasing a depression drug, not addiction treatment, and the medicalization it represents is a different animal from the peer-support culture that built this field.
- Jul 21Harm Reduction
DEA Draws a Real Line Between Kratom Leaf and the Gas-Station Opioid Products Wearing Its Name
DEA moved to temporarily Schedule I concentrated 7-OH kratom extracts and proposed permanently scheduling tianeptine. Here's why the distinction between kratom leaf and these engineered products actually matters.
- Jul 21Arizona Watch
Arizona's Overdose Deaths Are Still Rising. The Slowdown Is the Story.
CDC data through February 2026 shows Arizona's overdose rate of increase falling from 21% to 8.2% even as New Mexico, Colorado, and the rest of the western corridor get worse. What explains the gap — and what doesn't.
- Jul 21Science & Medicine
Daily Cannabis Use Raises Psychosis Risk. It Still Won't Fix Your Anxiety.
The Lancet Psychiatry's July 2026 cannabis package: credible evidence daily use is a contributory cause of psychosis, weak evidence cannabinoids treat anxiety or depression, and commercial markets driving both.
- Jul 21Treatment & Recovery
Arizona's Meth Deaths Spike Every July. The State Still Hasn't Applied for the Treatment That Works.
No FDA-approved medication treats meth or cocaine use disorder. Contingency management does the job instead — and five states now fund it through Medicaid. Arizona, mid-crisis every July, hasn't applied.
- Jul 21Lived Experience & Community
CMS Just Wrote 'Not Sick Enough Yet' Into Federal Medicaid Policy
Justin Bell wrote to medical students about a doctor who called his addiction 'a bump in the road.' Ten days from now, a CMS rule enshrines that same dismissiveness as federal Medicaid policy.
- Jul 20Lived Experience & Community
Heroin Basically Vanished From the Street Supply. The Craving It Built Never Got the Memo.
New research on heroin craving, withdrawal, and the brain's response to treatment — and what changed psychologically when fentanyl replaced heroin in the illicit supply.
- Jul 20Science & Medicine
A Teenager Asked for Cannabis Treatment. A New Study Says the Wait Got Worse, Not Better.
A George Mason University study of 124,000+ adolescent treatment admissions finds cannabis use disorder wait times rising sharply through 2022, with healthcare-referred teens waiting longest.
- Jul 20Technology & Innovation
Digital Health Just Raised $7.4 Billion. Addiction Treatment Barely Shows Up in the Count.
Rock Health's H1 2026 report shows $7.4B in digital health funding, concentrated in mega-deals for mental health. Addiction-specific treatment isn't named among them.
- Jul 20Harm Reduction
Charleston County Had 39 Overdoses This Month. Bystanders Carried the Antidote to Fewer Than Half.
Overdose spikes in Charleston, SC and Nashville, TN this month expose the same gap: naloxone works, but almost nobody standing next to the person dying is carrying it.
- Jul 20Technology & Innovation
Arizona's Medicaid Agency Built an AI Chatbot to Find You Opioid Treatment. Will You Trust It at 2 A.M.?
AHCCCS launched a Google Gemini-powered chatbot to help Arizonans find opioid treatment providers. What it gets right, and the trust gap it still has to close.
- Jul 20Policy & Funding
The DEA Banned Ibogaine in 1970. This Week, Three Federal Agencies Bet on It Anyway.
HHS and the VA signed a 5-year MOU to fast-track psychedelic research, including ibogaine for opioid use disorder. Here's what actually changed, what didn't, and what it means for veterans who can't currently get this treatment legally in the US.
- Jul 19Harm Reduction
Naloxone Doesn't Touch This One. Here's What's Actually in the Supply Now.
Medetomidine, nitazenes, and cychlorphine are reshaping the illicit drug supply faster than surveillance can track them. A plain-language guide to what each one does to the body, why naloxone only works on some of them, and what actually reduces risk.
- Jul 19Arizona Watch
Arizona Just Opened a $1.5M Naloxone Grant for Rural Counties. The Application Window Is Eleven Weeks.
AHCCCS opened its Opioid Antagonist Distribution Initiative on July 10 — $1.5 million for rural Arizona naloxone access, closing August 7, the first competitive grant under the state's new Rural Health Transformation Program.
- Jul 19Lived Experience & Community
A New Study Finally Says What Peer Workers Have Known All Along: Having Been There Is a Skill
A 36-interview study in the International Journal of Drug Policy makes the case that lived and living experience in the alcohol, drug, and mental health workforce is professional expertise — not a hiring accommodation.
- Jul 19The Crisis, By the Numbers
The DEA Is Throwing a Party for Beating Fentanyl. The Chemists Already Moved On.
Fentanyl deaths fell 22% in a year and DEA is holding a victory summit. Meanwhile SAMHSA banned grant funding for the test strips that catch what's replacing fentanyl in the supply — and a coroner in South Carolina just found a drug nobody has a name for yet.
- Jul 18Science & Medicine
Craving Doesn't Wait for You to Decide. It Changes the Math First.
A March 2026 Nature Mental Health study of 132 alcohol and cannabis users found craving actively reshapes reward-based decision-making — with different mechanisms by substance. Here's what that means if you've felt it.
- Jul 18Arizona Watch
Arizona Has $1.2 Billion for Opioid Recovery and No Law Letting Pharmacists Prescribe the Medication
Arizona is set to receive $1.215 billion in opioid settlement funds and administers a $20M+ federal grant for opioid treatment access — but the state hasn't passed the pharmacist scope-of-practice law that would let that money reach rural patients faster.
- Jul 18The Crisis, By the Numbers
Cocaine Is Cheaper and Purer Than It's Been in Decades. That's the Bad News.
US cocaine consumption has surged over 150% since 2019 even as overdose deaths from cocaine quadrupled since 2015 — not because cocaine got more dangerous on its own, but because fentanyl is now riding along in a supply chain nobody built to filter it out.
- Jul 18Harm Reduction
There's No Narcan for What Killed Michael Robins
Michael Robins died from computer-duster inhalant use in 2021, spending $4,433.74 on cans in two and a half months. Inhalants kill roughly 200 Americans a year with no reversal drug and almost no coverage — here's why.
- Jul 18Policy & Funding
A Pharmacist Could Now Legally Save Your Life. Arizona Hasn't Said Yes.
Congress just gave pharmacists a federal pathway to prescribe buprenorphine for opioid use disorder. Only ten states have said yes — and per NABP's tracking, Arizona isn't one of them. The gap between federally legal and locally usable is where people die waiting.
- Jul 17Policy & Funding
The FDA Killed Flavored Vapes and Approved Flavored Nicotine Pouches in the Same Six Weeks. Nicotine Didn't Get Safer. The Delivery Device Did.
The Fifth Circuit upheld the FDA's denial of flavored e-cigarette applications on June 25. Five days earlier, the FDA cleared flavored Zyn nicotine pouches for modified-risk marketing. Here's why the same agency reached opposite conclusions about flavor and youth risk in the same month.
- Jul 17Arizona Watch
Arizona Is Routing Opioid Settlement Money Through Sheriff's Offices. That's Either the Smart Play or the Wrong One, Depending on What Happens After Release.
Arizona's AG directed $10 million in opioid settlement funds to five county sheriff's offices for reentry programs — a bet that the highest-overdose-risk moment, the days after release, is where settlement money belongs.
- Jul 17Policy & Funding
SAMHSA Just Opened $281 Million in Grants. It Also Just Narrowed What Counts as Harm Reduction.
SAMHSA's $281 million FY26 funding round expands MAT and first-responder naloxone grants — while an April 2026 Dear Colleague letter already narrowed what federally funded harm-reduction programs can buy.