USA – Fentanyl. Fentanyl Accounted for the Majority of Opioid Identifications in DEA Drug Evidence Analyzed in the Third Quarter of 2017

Since 2016, the DEA’s Special Testing and Research Laboratory’s Emerging Trends Program has been publishing quarterly Emerging Threat Reports in order to monitor new psychoactive substance (NPS) trends in the United States and provide a snapshot of the psychoactive substance market in the United States. Data for these reports are obtained from a query of archived seizure and analysis information from drug evidence analyzed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) laboratory system. According to data from the most recentEmerging Threat Report, there were 344 identifications of opioids in drug evidence analyzed by the DEA’s laboratory system in the third quarter of 2017. Of these opioid identifications, nearly two-thirds (64%) were identified as fentanyl, either as the only controlled substance (44% of the 219 fentanyl identifications), in combination with heroin (45%), or in combination with other controlled substances (11%; data not shown). (National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS), 20.11.2017)

https://ndews.umd.edu/sites/ndews.umd.edu/files/ndews-news-issue-5-november-2017.pdf