With drug overdose deaths at a record 108,000 last year the New York Times looks at the synthetic drug phenomenon that’s driving fatalities, led by fentanyl and meth. Both drugs have proliferated because they are easy to make in a lab and ship around the world more directly and quickly than substances such as heroin and marijuana. Drug cartels no longer need to grow plants in a field with dozens of workers; all they need is a tucked-away warehouse or apartment and a few chemists. Drug users like synthetics too, as they are usually cheaper and more potent, but can be deadly. Last year fentanyl caused more overdose deaths in a single year than any other drug, followed by meth, which is also produced in labs. So far, law enforcement has not been very successful in stopping the flow of synthetics, compared to drugs grown on farms, and nobody now has come up with any alternatives.
Meanwhile, the L.A. Times looks at the fentanyl problem from a harm reduction perspective, noting that test strips are a simple solution to ensure that drugs are safe—but that drug mixing by users makes this so much more difficult. It says we need more sophisticated toos to identify both known and new dangers, as drug deaths are now tied to more than one drug. The year before the pandemic, nearly half of deadly overdoses across the country involved a combination of fentanyl, cocaine, heroin, or meth. While drug mixing is noting new, fentanyl is popping up in many kinds of drugs, so testing solely for one synthetic can miss other hazards. In addition, drug-testing strips are still officially illegal in about half of states, as they are classified as “drug paraphernalia” according to laws dating back decades. As part of harm reduction measures, we need to make drug testing tools legal, widely available, and capable of detecting a wide range of substances.