A U.S. Customs and Border Safety agent checks pedestrians’ documentation on the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Ysidro, California. A rising variety of specialists consider the circulate of lethal road fentanyl from Mexico into the U.S. has been disrupted, contributing to a drop in deadly overdoses.
Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Photographs
disguise caption
toggle caption
Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Photographs
This summer time, Dan Ciccarone, a doctor and road drug researcher on the College of California, San Francisco, despatched a crew to collect information on the town’s streets in areas the place illicit fentanyl has been a killer for years. They discovered one thing surprising.
“The fentanyl provide is drying up for some motive,” Ciccarone mentioned. “Hang around on the streets, discuss to individuals — the medication are arduous to search out and dearer.”
When road fentanyl started spreading within the American road drug provide starting in 2012, most specialists believed the lethal artificial opioid was unstoppable. Fentanyl is reasonable, straightforward to make and vastly worthwhile. The black market provide chain that feeds U.S. demand for the drug is operated by a number of the most subtle and ruthless prison gangs on the earth.
However Ciccarone mentioned that over the previous six months, he started listening to from road drug specialists across the U.S. who additionally had been seeing considerably much less fentanyl and fewer overdoses.
“I head from Ohio, I heard from West Virginia, and I heard from Maryland and Arizona, they usually’re all telling me the identical factor: some form of provide scarcity on the road,” he mentioned.
There are skeptics, individuals who query this development, however a number of the high drug coverage analysts within the U.S., in addition to specialists with shut ties to road fentanyl markets, consider the info exhibits a serious disruption within the lethal fentanyl provide chain.
“It is a growth that many drug coverage specialists wouldn’t have imagined,” mentioned Vanda Felbab-Brown on the Brookings Establishment, who research worldwide prison organizations that make and smuggle fentanyl.
She mentioned drug gangs look like trafficking much less fentanyl and are additionally “adulterating” or weakening the efficiency of the fentanyl being bought. “Everybody has been caught unexpectedly by the extent of the adulteration of fentanyl,” Felbab-Brown mentioned. “And much more considerably by claims in sure locations within the U.S. that there’s not sufficient fentanyl obtainable.”
Researchers usually agree there was an “unprecedented” drop in fentanyl purity in some elements of america. Labs that take a look at road fentanyl are discovering it lower or watered down way more aggressively, typically with an industrial chemical often known as BTMPS.
An industrial chemical blended into fentanyl
“We have had samples that had been simply BTMPS and never any fentanyl,” mentioned Nabarun Dasgupta, an dependancy researcher primarily based in North Carolina who assessments fentanyl samples collected from illicit drug markets across the nation.
Edward Sisco, a analysis chemist on the Nationwide Institute of Requirements and Expertise who helped analyze fentanyl samples, mentioned it is a thriller why drug gangs would use BTMPS in fentanyl mixtures. There is not any indication the substance causes customers to get excessive.
“It is generally used to forestall UV degradation of plastics, and it has another industrial makes use of as nicely,” Sisco mentioned, including that it seems the chemical is being added to fentanyl powders intentionally early within the provide chain, probably in drug labs in Mexico.
“When one thing new comes into the drug market, it often is available in one geographical location. It’s totally uncharacteristic to see [BTMPS] present up all around the nation at one time,” he mentioned.
Whereas BTMPS is taken into account poisonous to people, it does not trigger overdoses or fast dying.
Some drug coverage specialists consider these shifts within the fentanyl provide are elements within the sudden nationwide decline in fentanyl-related deaths, which dropped by roughly 10% final yr, in accordance with the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
Dennis Cauchon, a hurt discount activist in Ohio, believes that sample is seen in his state, the place deadly overdoses have fallen even sooner in 2024, down by roughly a 3rd. “For those who take a look at the share of fentanyl in Ohio’s drug provide, you’ll be able to predict what number of deaths there will probably be,” Cauchon mentioned. “So the true query is, why has fentanyl declined?”
This query is being fiercely debated by drug coverage and dependancy specialists.
Are Mexican drug cartels and their Chinese language companions lastly feeling strain?
Jen Daskal (middle), a deputy assistant to President Biden on the Nationwide Safety Council who focuses on fentanyl coverage, walks subsequent to Xu Datong (proper), director of China’s Narcotic Management Bureau, after a launch ceremony of the U.S.-China Counternarcotics Working Group in Beijing on Jan. 30.
Ng Han Guan/Pool/AFP through Getty Photographs/AFP
disguise caption
toggle caption
Ng Han Guan/Pool/AFP through Getty Photographs/AFP
Some analysts consider worldwide strain on Chinese language corporations that make fentanyl precursor chemical compounds could also be an element. Others assume a worldwide crackdown on Mexican drug cartels that smuggle fentanyl into the U.S. is lastly affecting the black market provide chain.
“There have been almost 70,000 kilos of fentanyl seized alongside the Southwest [U.S.] border within the 24 months ending in August 2024,” mentioned Jen Daskal, a deputy assistant to President Biden on the Nationwide Safety Council who focuses on fentanyl coverage. “That is extra fentanyl seized previously two fiscal years than within the prior 5 years mixed.”
Seizures are one a part of the technique. The U.S. has additionally steadily ramped up direct strain on the Mexican cartels, trying to seize fentanyl earnings, arresting high Sinaloa leaders and gaining extra cooperation from the Chinese language and Mexican governments.
Daskal acknowledged that drug deaths stay unacceptably excessive within the U.S. however mentioned the Biden administration’s fentanyl technique is displaying progress: “We’re seeing the results by way of lives saved.”
Final yr, the cartels appeared to acknowledge the strain. They issued public guarantees to curb fentanyl manufacturing and smuggling into america. The usDrug Enforcement Administration voiced skepticism in regards to the gesture, calling it “a public relations stunt.”
However Felbab-Brown at Brookings now believes some sort of significant “disruptions to U.S. provide” might have occurred inside Mexico. She says the cartels may additionally hope to scale back legislation enforcement deal with their operations by intentionally weakening the efficiency of road fentanyl.
“It could possibly be their resolution on the wholesale provide degree to be adulterating fentanyl to scale back mortality. If that’s the case, that’s nonetheless a major accomplishment by U.S. legislation enforcement, shaping markets and habits,” she mentioned.
“We must be actual cautious about being too optimistic”
Not everyone seems to be satisfied the discount in fentanyl provide on America’s streets is significant. Dan Salter leads a federal process power focusing on drug traffickers in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
Salter informed NPR that there was an enormous drop-off within the quantity of fentanyl turning up in drug seizures in his a part of the U.S. in 2024. “We have seized nearly 75 kilograms of fentanyl this yr to date,” he mentioned. “In 2023, we seized 216 kilograms.”
However in accordance with Salter, that is probably a brief and modest provide disruption that is unlikely to final: “I believe we must be actual cautious about being too optimistic.”
Rachel Winograd, a drug coverage researcher on the College of Missouri-St. Louis, can be skeptical that disruptions to the fentanyl pipeline are inflicting the drop-off in drug deaths, that are down by 34% in Missouri.
“Drug seizures on the border and elsewhere did actually ramp up in 2023,” she mentioned. “However I don’t assume that has something to do with the lower, not less than not right here in Missouri.”
Winograd thinks different elements, together with higher dependancy therapy and the unfold of the drug overdose reversal remedy naloxone are greater elements saving lives.
Specialists agree the U.S. road drug provide stays extremely poisonous and harmful. Substances getting used to adulterate fentanyl, together with BTMPS and xylazine, a horse tranquilizer that is also referred to as “tranq,” seem to trigger fewer deadly overdoses however are nonetheless dangerous to people. Entrance-line hurt discount employees additionally concern the rising variability in fentanyl purity might put some customers in danger as they attempt to handle their doses.
Haven Wheelock, who works on the road for a company referred to as Outdoors In in Portland, Ore., mentioned the sudden shift within the fentanyl provide is inflicting some individuals experiencing dependancy to hunt assist. “Might it’s a motivating issue for folk to do one thing completely different by way of looking for therapy? Completely. It might additionally result in extra dangerous behaviors,” she added.
Wheelock warned that some individuals in extreme dependancy might additionally wind up injecting fentanyl, relatively than smoking it, a observe that’s thought-about extra harmful.
Ciccarone, the road drug researcher in San Francisco, believes an general drop in fentanyl availability and purity has slowed overdoses in a significant means, contributing to a 15% drop in drug deaths in his metropolis to date this yr.
“The one factor that would actually clarify this can be a provide shock,” he mentioned. “The fentanyl is drying up.”
Most specialists interviewed by NPR agreed the drop in fentanyl provide is important and widespread however mentioned it would take months of analysis and extra information to substantiate whether or not the change can have an enduring impression.
