The Log
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733 stories, newest first.
July 2026
- Jul 17Science & Medicine
Stimulant Trials Have Been Grading Every Medication Pass/Fail. A New Meta-Analysis Says That's Why None of Them Passed.
A JAMA Psychiatry meta-analysis of 12 RCTs finds cabergoline significantly reduced cocaine use even though no medication reached abstinence-based significance — evidence that stimulant trials built around abstinence-only endpoints have been missing real treatment signal.
- Jul 17Harm Reduction
The DEA Just Scheduled the Thing People Used to Get Off Opioids. It Built Them Nothing to Replace It.
The DEA's temporary Schedule I order for concentrated 7-hydroxymitragynine takes effect around August 5, 2026. It targets the product, not the reason people started using it — chronic pain and opioid withdrawal nobody else was treating.
- Jul 16Harm Reduction
FDA's New Psychedelic Trial Rules Don't Reach the Clinics Where Ibogaine Patients Are Dying
The FDA finalized guidance this week fixing the trial-design flaw that killed MDMA therapy in 2024. It changes nothing for people with opioid use disorder flying to unregulated ibogaine clinics in Mexico right now — where a 2026 multisite dataset shows they're the only patients dying.
- Jul 16Harm Reduction
A Vending Machine in Maricopa County Is Already Reversing Overdoses This Summer
Maricopa County has handed out 1,700 heat-relief kits with naloxone during its deadliest overdose month. Officials report two reversals already — including a mother who saved her son.
- Jul 16Lived Experience & Community
They Just Know: What Peer Support Workers Prove About Recovery
A UNSW study of 36 interviews finds clients recognize peer support workers' recovery history without disclosure — and that the field still underpays the expertise that makes it work.
- Jul 16Treatment & Recovery
Arizona Wrapped an AI Chatbot Around Its Treatment Locator. It Didn't Fix What's Broken Underneath.
Arizona's Medicaid agency launched an AI chatbot to help people find opioid treatment. Federal audits of the same underlying model — a locator with no independent verification — found most listings wrong.
- Jul 15Harm Reduction
Meg Caldwell Bought It Legally Every Time. It Killed Her Anyway.
Nitrous oxide sold as flavored 'Galaxy Gas' canisters is driving a documented rise in ER visits, poison-center calls, and permanent nerve damage. Here's the biology, the numbers, and the legislative response catching up to it.
- Jul 15Policy & Funding
The FDA Told Vape Makers It Won't Enforce Its Own Rule. Now It's Being Sued For That.
Public health groups sued the FDA on July 14 over a guidance letting unauthorized flavored e-cigarettes and nicotine pouches stay on the market indefinitely while applications are 'under review.'
- Jul 15Lived Experience & Community
Your Body Knows You're About to Crave Something Before You Do
A JAMA Psychiatry trial found a wearable heart-rate-variability patch cut substance use by 64% by catching the body's stress signature before a craving fully lands.
- Jul 15Policy & Funding
Medicaid Just Decided How Long You Have to Stay Sober Before It Trusts You
CMS's new Medicaid work-requirement rule exempts people in active treatment, but caps the 'stable recovery' exemption at five years — a threshold pulled from decades-old studies. Nebraska's early rollout shows what that means in practice.
- Jul 14Technology & Innovation
Six Months In, Compass Pathways' Psilocybin Data Clears the Bar Lykos Couldn't
Compass Pathways says COMP360 psilocybin held its effect on treatment-resistant depression through six months. The number that matters isn't the response rate — it's the durability, and why that's a different claim than what sank MDMA therapy in 2024.
- Jul 14Lived Experience & Community
Four Landlords Said No. The Fifth Cost Him Two and a Half Years of Prison Wages.
Jeff Noland served 10 years in a Tennessee prison, then paid $2,400 — two and a half years of prison wages — to find a landlord who'd take his registry status. His story is about housing before it's about drugs.
- Jul 14Harm Reduction
A Third OTC Naloxone Brand Won't Save Anyone Whose Kit Is in a Drawer at Home
The FDA approved Rextovy, a third OTC naloxone nasal spray, on June 16, 2026. But a new study shows the real failure point isn't access — it's that most people who own naloxone don't have it on them when an overdose happens.
- Jul 14The Crisis, By the Numbers
Half of 8th Graders Don't Think Trying Fentanyl Once Is Dangerous. That's Not a Knowledge Gap, It's a Body Count
A new JAMA Network Open analysis of 2025 Monitoring the Future data finds 52% of 8th graders don't see great risk in trying fentanyl once or twice. Here's why that gap matters and what actually helps.
- Jul 14Policy & Funding
The DEA Drew a Line Around Kratom. Tennessee Erased It.
The DEA's Schedule I action targets concentrated 7-OH kratom extract, not whole-leaf kratom. Tennessee's new ban doesn't make that distinction — and people using kratom to stay off opioids are the ones who'll pay for it.
- Jul 14Science & Medicine
Cannabis Never Treated Your Anxiety — It Just Made Tonight Quieter
A Lancet Psychiatry review of 54 trials found no evidence cannabis treats anxiety, depression, or PTSD. Here's the psychology behind why it still feels like it works — and what that means for you tonight.
- Jul 14Arizona Watch
In Phoenix, Meth Doesn't Cause Heatstroke — It Hides It. That's Why July Is the Deadliest Month.
Maricopa County's fatal overdoses run more than double their January rate every July, and county data shows nearly all of the substance-involved heat deaths trace back to stimulants. Here's what's actually happening in the body, and what keeps you alive tonight.
- Jul 13Science & Medicine
The Sedative Crackdown Worked in the Waiting Room. It Never Reached the Nursing Home — or the Street.
A national study of 25 million older Americans finds benzodiazepine prescribing plateaued after 2020 while long-term-care dispensing rose 85%. Meanwhile, GHB deaths are climbing and DEA keeps emergency-scheduling designer benzodiazepines it can't keep up with.
- Jul 13Science & Medicine
A 20-Year-Old Antidepressant Just Did What No Drug Has Ever Been Approved to Do for Meth
A randomized trial across six Australian outpatient centers found mirtazapine, a generic antidepressant, modestly reduced methamphetamine use — one of the only positive pharmacotherapy signals for a use disorder with no approved medication.
- Jul 13Technology & Innovation
The Addiction-Tech Money Isn't Drying Up. It's Just Betting Almost Entirely on AI Now.
Digital health funding hit $4B in Q1 2026 with AI-branded companies capturing 54% of it. The telehealth buprenorphine rules keeping virtual OUD care alive were also just extended through 2026.
- Jul 13Harm Reduction
Naloxone Doesn't Touch Tranq. Scientists Just Figured Out Why — and What Actually Does.
A new mouse study explains why naloxone alone fails against xylazine-laced fentanyl — and why medetomidine, the drug now replacing xylazine in the supply, is an even harder problem.
- Jul 13Lived Experience & Community
She Emailed a Stranger 'I Think I'm Dying.' He Wrote Back With the Only Help That Existed.
Amy Massey's bladder was failing from years of ketamine use when she emailed a stranger for help. Drug services had nothing to offer her. The peer network she helped build did.
- Jul 13Arizona Watch
Arizona's Overdose Deaths Went Up. The Vending Machine That Fights Them Is Empty.
Arizona overdose deaths rose 17% in 2025 while the national rate fell 15%. A Phoenix Narcan vending machine sits empty after federal cuts — and the people who depend on it explain what that actually costs.
- Jul 12Science & Medicine
Your Brain Chemistry May Decide Whether Cannabis Triggers Psychosis. A New Scan Shows How.
Penn and CHOP researchers used ultra-high-field MRI to show that low glutamate in the brain's anterior cingulate cortex predicts worse psychosis symptoms specifically in people who use cannabis — not in non-users, pointing to a biological pathway rather than just correlation.