If you've heard of phenibut, a substance you can buy online that some people use for anxiety or sleep, there's a new reason for concern. A report from U.S. poison centers shows that calls about phenibut exposures went up between 2009 and 2019. This means more people are having experiences bad enough that someone called for help.
The report doesn't tell us who these people are, how much phenibut they took, or what exactly happened to them. We don't know if they had mild side effects or needed to go to the hospital. The data comes from voluntary calls to poison centers, so it only captures a slice of what might be happening.
What this tells us is that phenibut is showing up on the radar more often. It's a signal that something is changing. However, this kind of report can't prove that phenibut itself is becoming more dangerous. It just shows that more problems are being reported. We need more information to understand the real risks people are facing.
