"Most people in the United States know what fentanyl is. They know that a tiny amount of fentanyl can kill you. They know that it can often be found mixed in with other drugs, specifically, in prescription pills sold on the street. They know that people have overdosed after buying what they thought was oxycodone or Vicodin, when the pill was mostly fentanyl."
"We can ascertain what is in the drug supply primarily through a few ways: by testing drugs that are seized by law enforcement, by community testing where people voluntarily submit their own drug samples for testing, and by blood toxicology screening in the aftermath of an overdose. Community testing is an efficient and quick method to know, because it allows us to get closer to a real-time understanding of what exactly is in a substance and what that substance may be sold as."
Fentanyl is widely recognized for its extreme potency and its presence as an adulterant in street-sold prescription pills, contributing to fatal overdoses when buyers unknowingly consume it. The illicit drug supply changes rapidly across regions, with sedatives, more potent opioids, and polysubstance combinations adding complex overdose risks. Monitoring methods include testing law-enforcement seizures, voluntary community drug-sample testing, and post-overdose blood toxicology. Community testing provides timely, near–real-time information about substance composition and street appearance. People who use drugs report on potency, symptoms, and local street names. Market gaps left by one substance are often filled by another, sometimes stronger, compound.
Read at Psychology Today
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