The Log
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876 stories, newest first.
October 2026
- Oct 3Arizona Watch
Overdose Deaths Fell Nationwide in 2025. Arizona Went the Other Way.
Overdose deaths fell about 14% nationally in 2025 but rose roughly 18% in Arizona, with fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine all up. What that means for naloxone, intake and settlement spending.
- Oct 1Harm Reduction
Fewer Xanax Scripts for Twentysomethings Is Not the Same as Fewer Xanax
Benzodiazepine prescriptions fell 26.7% in a decade, fastest among young adults, while counterfeit Xanax made with designer benzos fills the gap.
- Oct 1Lived Experience & Community
Her Doctor Told Her to Take More. It Took 38 Months to Get Off Them.
A published patient account of a 38-month benzodiazepine taper, a new 11-year prescribing study, and what both mean for anyone on, coming off, or buying sedatives.
September 2026
- Sep 29Policy & Funding
SAMHSA Just Funded the Overdose Antidote. It's Still Not Funding an Answer for Meth.
SAMHSA announced $247.9M in awards Sept. 25, including MAT-PDOA and First Responders-CARA funds. The good news, the gap, and what is still yours.
- Sep 29Technology & Innovation
A Breakthrough Badge Isn't a Treatment. Meth Patients Need the One That Already Works.
NET Recovery's device got FDA Breakthrough designation for stimulant use disorder on Sept. 23. What that does and doesn't mean, and what clinics can offer today.
- Sep 29Lived Experience & Community
Meth Took Everything From JJ Keller. A Hospital That Refused to Write Him Off Got Some of It Back.
No drug is approved for meth or cocaine use disorder. What a Denver peer specialist's story, CDC data and 30 years of contingency management research say about what actually helps.
- Sep 28Lived Experience & Community
Her Premium Tripled. Nobody Called That a Relapse Trigger — But It Was One.
A patient with years of stable recovery nearly lost it to a tripled insurance premium, not a craving. Here's what the psychology of that kind of relapse actually looks like — and why it isn't a failure of willpower.
- Sep 28Policy & Funding
HHS Just Sent $247.9 Million Toward Addiction Care. Watch Where the Smaller Numbers Land.
SAMHSA awarded $247.9 million for addiction treatment, naloxone training, and recovery services on September 25. Here's what the individual grant lines actually fund — and why the total is less informative than the breakdown.
- Sep 28Science & Medicine
Craving Doesn't Fade the Longer You're Off Opioids. Brain Scans Show It Gets Louder, Then Learns to Hide.
NIDA researchers mapped the whole-brain circuitry behind opioid craving 'incubation' — why the urge to use often peaks weeks after quitting, not on day one. Here's what the science means for anyone who has been blindsided by a craving that showed up late.
- Sep 28Technology & Innovation
Arizona Built an AI Front Door for Opioid Treatment. It Inherited the Same Broken Directory.
AHCCCS, Google Public Sector, and Syntasa launched a generative-AI opioid treatment locator for Arizona. The federal locator it's meant to improve on has a documented history of stale data and dead ends — the question is whether a chatbot fixes that or just says it faster.
- Sep 27Harm Reduction
There's a New Opioid Class Your Test Strip Can't See. It Exists Because the Last One Got Banned.
A new family of synthetic opioids called 'orphines' — including cychlorphine — is entering the illicit drug supply, and current fentanyl and nitazene test strips don't detect them.
- Sep 27Harm Reduction
The FDA Wants to Approve Vapes Faster. It Never Fixed Why Approving Them Slowly Wasn't Working.
The FDA is preparing to speed up vape and nicotine pouch authorizations. Harm reduction advocates and youth-health groups are both about to be unhappy with the same decision.
- Sep 27Lived Experience & Community
A Veteran Spent Nine Years Hiding His Recovery. Now He Tells Strangers On Purpose.
Why hearing someone else's recovery story changes what a person in active use believes is possible for themselves — and the veteran peer specialist proving it in Charleston.
- Sep 27Policy & Funding
Purdue Pharma No Longer Exists. Proving It Wrecked Your Life Just Got Harder Anyway.
Purdue Pharma dissolved this year under a $7.4 billion settlement. Arizona just banked $108 million from it. The individual victims the fund was built for are being denied at scale.
- Sep 26Arizona Watch
Arizona's September Naloxone Shipments Help, But They're Sized for a Crisis That's Shrinking Everywhere Except Here
Arizona is receiving 6,599 units of naloxone from Hikma and the first installment of a 33,714-unit Amneal shipment this September, under national opioid settlement deals. It's not enough given the state's rising overdose death toll.
- Sep 26Harm Reduction
Laughing Gas Is Killing More People Than Ever, and Treating It as a Joke Is Why
Nitrous oxide deaths rose from 23 in 2010 to 156 in 2023, a 578% increase, per JAMA Network Open. The 'hippy crack' framing is why the nerve damage and deaths are being ignored.
- Sep 26Science & Medicine
Hopelessness, Not Just Cannabis, Is What Keeps First-Episode Psychosis From Lifting
A 24-month prospective study of 72 people with cannabis-induced first-episode psychosis finds hopelessness and depression, not cannabis use alone, predict who relapses — with a fourfold relapse risk when both compound with continued use.
- Sep 26Lived Experience & Community
Peer Support Isn't an Add-On to Recovery. It's the Mechanism — and We're Burning Out the People Who Provide It
Peer recovery support workers don't just supplement clinical care — 2026 research says they supply a specific psychological mechanism clinicians can't replicate. The same research shows the field burns them out by skipping supervision and anti-stigma structures.
- Sep 26Policy & Funding
SAMHSA Sent $247.9 Million to Treatment Programs This Week. Watch the Money Washington Isn't Protecting.
SAMHSA awarded $247.9 million for addiction treatment, first responder naloxone training and peer support this week. Here's what the money actually buys — and why the bigger fight over block grants matters more.
- Sep 25Science & Medicine
The FDA Just Made It Easier to Sell Nicotine Pouches. The Drug Meant to Help You Quit Got Turned Away.
The FDA plans to speed up approvals for vapes and nicotine pouches while the leading new smoking-cessation drug, cytisinicline, sits delayed until 2027 over manufacturing paperwork. What it means for anyone in recovery who also uses nicotine.
- Sep 25Policy & Funding
The DEA Is Rescheduling Marijuana Through a Process Its Own Watchdog Says Doesn't Exist on Paper
A GAO report published Sept 23 found the DEA has no documented procedures for how it schedules or reschedules controlled substances — landing in the middle of the marijuana Schedule I to III review that's already left states like California guessing.
- Sep 25The Crisis, By the Numbers
Four Million Fewer Americans Have Alcohol Use Disorder Than in 2021. Don't Thank the Mocktails.
NSDUH data shows alcohol use disorder fell from 10.6% to 8.9% of Americans since 2021 — about 4 million fewer people. A psychiatrist explains the generational shift, and why only 2.6% of people with AUD get medication for it.
- Sep 25Arizona Watch
Arizona Quietly Stopped Fighting Fentanyl. It's Chasing Landscapers Instead.
CBP data shows Arizona drug seizures collapsed from 27,000 to about 10,000 in three years. A DHS watchdog says it's because ICE redirected fentanyl investigators to immigration sweeps. Arizona's AG calls it a betrayal.
- Sep 24Science & Medicine
A New Study Found the Power Switch Behind Getting High. Turning It Off Is Still Years Away.
A new Nature Neuroscience study found a mitochondrial 'energy switch' that lets opioids and methamphetamine hijack dopamine differently than food or sex do. It's a real mechanism finding in mice, years from a human treatment.