This Is the New Threat Driving the Opioid Crisis

America has an opioid problem, but the face of that problem is shifting rapidly.

An emerging threats report prepared by the Drug Enforcement Administration and marked “for official use only” notes that fentanyl made up 65 percent of the agency’s opioid identifications in the second quarter of this year. The report, a copy of which was obtained by Foreign Policy, is based on seized drug evidence analyzed by DEA’s laboratory.

Furanyl fentanyl, the next most common compound, made up another 9 percent of identifications in the opioid category.

These numbers reflect a frightening trend that has already been identified by public health officials. Data released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that fentanyl is now the leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States.

The rise of fentanyl underscores just how hard it will be to solve the opioid epidemic. President Donald Trump this week declared the opioid epidemic a national public health emergency, saying that “overdoses are driven by a massive increase in addiction to prescription painkillers, heroin, and other opioids.” 

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