Synthetic drugs are being discovered about once a week. It’s tough to keep up with all the trends. After all, which ones should you pay attention to when they come out? The best way to keep up with them is to look at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) quarterly analysis of synthetic drug trends.
The DEA Special Testing and Research Laboratory’s Emerging Trends Program has been compiling data to effectively monitor new psychoactive substance (NPS) trends in the United States through queries of archived seizure and analysis information from drug evidence analyzed by the DEA laboratory system.
Fentanyl is Still King
- There were 15 synthetic cannabinoid identifications
- 5F-MDMB-PICA was the most commonly identified synthetic cannabinoid, accounting for approximately 60% (9 identifications).
- There were 592 identifications of fentanyl, fentanyl-related compounds, and other new opioids.
- Fentanyl accounted for 85% (505).
- Fentanyl was found as the only controlled substance in 52% of the identifications and with heroin in approximately 31% of the identifications.
- There were 21 cathinone identifications.
- Eutylone continues to the most reported cathinone accounting for 71% (15) of identifications.
- There were 20 benzodiazepine identifications.
- Flualprazolam was the most reported benzodiazepine accounting for 45% (9) of identifications.
Here is the chart from the DEA for a more detailed analysis.
