The Log
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733 stories, newest first.
August 2026
- Aug 10Treatment & Recovery
A Hospital Sent Jean Descamps to a Bus Stop Instead of Treatment. He Died Hours Later.
Jean Descamps died hours after a Portland-area hospital discharged him with naloxone but no addiction treatment. NPR's investigation, new Yale craving research, and a Stat News insurance story show the failure is stigma, not evidence.
- Aug 9Policy & Funding
The FDA Approved Cappuccino-Flavored Nicotine Pouches for Smokers. Teenagers Will Find Them First.
The FDA authorized four new flavored nicotine pouches, including Cappuccino and Autumn Spice, reasoning they help smokers switch. Physicians warn the same flavors are hooking a generation that never smoked.
- Aug 9Science & Medicine
Psilocybin's FDA Clock Just Started Ticking — the DEA's Hasn't
A VA trial, a Compass Pathways filing, and an FDA hearing all landed the same week. FDA approval of psilocybin looks close — DEA rescheduling doesn't.
- Aug 9Policy & Funding
DC's Opioid Settlement Money Just Became a Medicaid Patch — And That's the Whole Scandal
DC's FY2027 budget redirects opioid settlement money into Medicaid and pulls treatment-center funding elsewhere — a textbook supplantation case advocates say other cities should watch.
- Aug 9Arizona Watch
Arizona's Drug Supply Is Turning Into a Guessing Game. Washington Just Took Away the Answer Key.
Arizona's overdose death rate just hit an all-time high as fentanyl powder replaces pills and nitazenes spread nationally. SAMHSA just banned federal funding for the test strips that could catch both.
- Aug 9Treatment & Recovery
The Hospital Didn't Believe Him. Twelve Hours Later, He Was Dead.
Jean Descamps died hours after an Oregon hospital called him a malingerer and released him to a bus station. New reporting and a JAMA study show his death wasn't a fluke — it's how the system is built.
- Aug 8Treatment & Recovery
Treatment Centers Are Seeing a Kratom Wave the DEA's New Rule Won't Touch
Kratom-dependence admissions are surging at U.S. treatment centers even as the DEA moves to schedule only its most concentrated extract. The people showing up for care were never buying the extract — they were buying a supplement aisle promise.
- Aug 8Technology & Innovation
Your Phone Can Already Predict Your Next Cigarette. Nobody's Built the App That Uses It.
Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University and the University of Central Lancashire used passive smartphone movement data to predict smoking cravings and lapses with 85% accuracy in a five-minute window.
- Aug 8Policy & Funding
The White House Wants More Time for the Hemp Products Congress Already Voted to Ban
Republican senators are pushing to keep a federal hemp-THC ban on schedule for November, as the White House and VP Vance reportedly seek a delay — with some hemp and cannabis companies quietly on the ban's side.
- Aug 8Treatment & Recovery
Congress Deleted Doctors' Paperwork Excuse for Treating Addiction. Most Kept the Stigma Anyway.
Congress erased the DEA's 'X-waiver' paperwork barrier to prescribing buprenorphine in 2023. Three years later, most U.S. doctors still won't treat addiction — proof the barrier was never really the form.
- Aug 7Harm Reduction
Nobody Regulates the Gas Station Whippet Aisle Until Someone Dies. Then It Takes a Lawsuit.
Inhalant deaths, led by nitrous oxide, have risen sixfold since 2010 — and inhalant use disorder still has no FDA-approved medication. A look at what's regulated, what isn't, and why treatment lags every other substance class.
- Aug 7Policy & Funding
35 State Attorneys General Just Told the White House Not to Delay the Hemp-THC Ban. The White House Wanted To.
Sen. Ted Budd moved to strip delay language from a spending bill and keep the federal hemp-THC recriminalization on track for November, over reported White House pushback and a joint letter from 35 state attorneys general.
- Aug 7Science & Medicine
People Who Drink and Occasionally Use Psilocybin Score Lower on Depression Scales. Don't Call It a Treatment Yet.
A new Journal of Drug Issues study of 2,841 people found psilocybin-alcohol co-users scored lower on depression measures than alcohol-only drinkers — but only at low-frequency use, and the study can't prove why.
- Aug 7Arizona Watch
Arizona's Overdose Rate Just Hit Double the National Average. Its Own Audit Says $50.9 Million of Settlement Money Went Somewhere Else.
Arizona's overdose death rate hit 43.5 per 100,000 — double the national average — while the state's own audit found $50.9 million in opioid settlement funds spent without documented proof of the required opioid connection.
- Aug 7Treatment & Recovery
A New Methadone Bill Calls Itself Reform. It Would Still Decide Access by ZIP Code.
MOTAA 2.0 would let board-certified doctors prescribe methadone for pharmacy pickup. It's real progress for a few thousand patients — and it leaves the 600,000 people locked into 2,100 clinics exactly where they were.
- Aug 6Technology & Innovation
Digital Health Raised $7.4 Billion in Six Months. A New Report Says Virtual Addiction Care Still Isn't Solving the Real Problem.
Digital health funding hit $7.4B in H1 2026, but an independent assessment of virtual opioid treatment platforms found they don't meaningfully expand access or cut costs.
- Aug 6Lived Experience & Community
Recovery Community Centers Run on Peer Leaders. Rural America Can't Keep Them in the Building.
A new qualitative study of rural Georgia recovery community center directors shows why peer leadership works clinically — and how little infrastructure supports it.
- Aug 6Policy & Funding
The FDA Said Flavors Were the Problem in 2020. In 2026, It Approved Four More.
The FDA authorized four new flavored nicotine pouches this week under a pilot program it says is winding down. The industry has run this same 'reduced risk' playbook before.
- Aug 6Harm Reduction
Naloxone Still Saves Lives. It Can't Touch the Drug That's Replacing Xylazine.
Medetomidine, a veterinary sedative, is now twice as common as xylazine in Philadelphia's drug supply. Naloxone doesn't reverse it, and there's no approved antidote.
- Aug 5Science & Medicine
How Ibogaine Went From a Schedule I Ghost Story to a Trump Executive Order in One Spring
Ibogaine moved from Schedule I obscurity to a Trump executive order, a $50M Texas grant, and an FDA-cleared alcohol use disorder trial in one spring — driven by veterans' groups and RFK Jr.'s MAHA movement, ahead of the underlying safety science.
- Aug 5Technology & Innovation
A Gambling Addiction Startup Just Did What No Fentanyl App Ever Managed: Get a State to Pay For It
Birches Health, a telehealth gambling-disorder provider, landed a state contract with Pennsylvania's Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs and a spot on the 2026 NY Digital Health 100 — a rare case of a behavioral-health app getting public money, not just VC money.
- Aug 5Lived Experience & Community
Your Craving Isn't Weak Willpower. Yale Just Showed It's Rewiring How You Decide, in Real Time.
A Yale-led study in Nature Mental Health found that craving alters reward learning and decision-making itself, not just the desire for a substance — with opposite effects for alcohol versus cannabis use.
- Aug 5Harm Reduction
Missy Jellison Beat Meth Working the Program Minnesota Just Defunded
Minnesota cut HIV Prevention grant funding to eight harm reduction programs, including Duluth's Harm Reduction Sisters — the organization that hired Missy Jellison two years after harm reduction, not abstinence, got her off meth.
- Aug 4Treatment & Recovery
A Nicotine Pouch Looks Like Nothing in Someone's Lip. That's the Whole Design Problem.
Teen nicotine pouch use nearly quadrupled from 2022 to 2025, per CDC-linked data. The psychology behind the surge — and why the discretion that makes pouches easy to hide is the same feature that makes early dependence easy to miss.