Written by: Officer Jermaine Galloway
January 2025
My first day back on the road and in the classroom for 2025 was in the beautiful state of Georgia. Before my class, I spent an afternoon doing a community scan. I took some extra time and stopped at multiple stores in neighboring counties. Of course, as with any scan, I located many different drug-related items, marketing, products, and trends. With that being said there was one thing on this scan that stood out to me and that was the popularity of the legal drug Phenibut. This stood out to me because it was EVERYWHERE. I don’t mean this was in grocery stores or nail salons, but that every smoke shop, gas station, and liquor store that was promoting various drug products was also selling Phenibut. I located this drug in almost every store across multiple counties. The problem is that phenibut does not carry age restrictions, is as cheap as $7, and is an incredibly powerful depressant. This drug works well by itself but is also popular on some college campuses as it travels with alcohol, and is popular with some opioid seekers and others who use various depressants. Phenibut allows many to get around drug testing standards and essentially goes undetected.
And Georgia is not the only state where I found a large amount of Phenibut. We have located phenibut in the grade school system and with some who use it for alcohol-related withdrawals. Here is an email I received last year on this drug:
"My 42-year-old brother was found unconscious. Used Kratom and Phenibut. Had a psychotic episode when withdrawing. No real help or knowledge of these drugs for medical treatment, drug treatment, and outpatient therapy. He is in inpatient now but has no resources for outpatient. His drug tests were all negative so insurance is also an issue. Not sure if his mental health will return or if his brain is chemically altered." -- Registered Nurse, South Carolina.
I don't believe that products like Phenibut are on many states' radar but the fact that I can find various bands in every drug-promoting store that I check tells me that we need to be looking harder, much harder at this drug and its popularity in our communities.
Read more about Phenibut in these articles:
Phenibut in Dietary Supplements
FDA Acts on Dietary Supplements Containing DMHA and Phenibut
Phenibut Exposures Reported to Poison Centers
And hear more about what I have to say about Phenibut on my podcast channel here: