Fentanyl

Fentanyl’s New Foe: A Quick Test Strip That Can Prevent Overdoses

Heroin and cocaine users rely on the strip to see if their drugs have been contaminated with the synthetic opioid, but the practice has encountered opposition.

I was addicted to fentanyl. Here's what we should be doing about it.

A former fentanyl addict writes about her experiences and the policies she believes will best help others.

Fentanyl Testing to Prevent Overdose

Fentanyl test strips (‘FTS’) are a form of inexpensive drug testing technology that was originally developed for urinalysis, but which have been shown to be effective at detecting the presence of fentanyl and fentanyl-analogs in drug samples prior to ingestion.

Sending Your Kid to College? Send Them With Fentanyl Testing Strips and Naloxone

Think of them as an essential harm-reduction tool, like condoms.

‘It’s devastating’: how fentanyl is unfolding as one of America’s greatest tragedies

More than 100,000 people died from overdoses in a single year – driven primarily by one drug

Are people really falling ill from touching fentanyl? In most cases, scientists say no

The synthetic opioid, blamed for increasing numbers of overdose deaths across the U.S., is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. But experts consulted by STAT said many of the reported incidents appear to be false alarms that run counter to scientific fact and exaggerate the risks.

Can Just Touching Fentanyl Cause An Overdose?

It’s yet another sign media is falling into old, tired patterns: stoking drug hysteria.

Hooked: One Family’s Ordeal With Fentanyl

This deadly synthetic painkiller, up to 50 times as powerful as heroin, presents a new level of peril in America’s opioid crisis.

The Viral Story About the Cop Who Overdosed by Touching Fentanyl Is Nonsense

The terrifying tale has been reported as fact, but toxicologists doubt that it is medically possible.

Dark web dealers voluntarily ban deadly fentanyl

Suppliers, fearing police crackdown, decide opioid is too high-risk to trade.

Fentanyl Is Stronger Than Any Opioid And It's Killing Casual Drug Users

Over a hundred times stronger than heroin, Fentanyl offers a high that's hard to come back from.

Fentanyl: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Unfortunately, the drug is also used illegally and it’s easier to produce than heroin, according to the Wall Street Journal. Drug dealers tend to prefer selling Fentanyl because the high doesn’t last as long as heroin’s. All of this has contributed to Fentanyl being a growing cause of overdose deaths.

Fentanyl: The Drug Deadlier Than Heroin

The underlying source of the fentanyl crisis in Canada traces back to 2012, when the notorious prescribed painkiller OxyContin was pulled from pharmacy shelves in lieu of a "safer" alternative, OxyNeo. This was the point in time when counterfeit fentanyl disguised as fake OxyContin pills arose, proliferated, and sparked a full-on crisis in the country—with Canada's west being a major epicentre.

Fentanyl: The king of all opiates, and a killer drug crisis

It’s stronger than heroin and more potent than OxyContin. It’s also cheap, ubiquitous, and incredibly deadly. Inside the rise of fentanyl.

Heroin Epidemic Is Yielding to a Deadlier Cousin: Fentanyl

Fentanyl, which looks like heroin, is a powerful synthetic painkiller that has been laced into heroin but is increasingly being sold by itself — often without the user’s knowledge.

How fentanyl became America’s leading cause of overdose deaths

Fentanyl and its analogs are appearing across America, making the US’s deadliest drug overdose crisis ever even worse.

How Fentanyl Changes The Opioid Equation

Almost half of the nearly 200 U.S. drug overdose deaths every day involve fentanyl.

How fentanyl is making deadly drugs even deadlier

But it'll take more than a touch to overdose.

Illicit Version Of Painkiller Fentanyl Makes Heroin Deadlier

Regional drug dealers add the illicit form of fentanyl to the heroin they sell in hopes of restoring the potency of a product that's been diluted by dealers higher up the distribution chain.

Keeping Fentanyl Out of the US Will Take More Than a Wall

Unlike heroin (derived from poppies), cocaine (processed from coca leaves), or methamphetamine (cooked in garage-sized labs), producing fentanyl and its deadlier analogs pretty much requires a graduate degree in illicit chemistry. “They are fairly sophisticated clandestine laboratory processes, more complicated than methamphetamine, and require some degree of chemistry knowledge...

The Brazen Way a Chinese Company Pumped Fentanyl Ingredients Into the U.S.

Yuancheng used an army of young, perky salespeople to peddle illegal chemicals to Americans.

The U.S. Has A Fentanyl Shortage ... In The Clinic, Not On The Streets

I hope that my doctor doesn't require their patients to bring their own fentanyl.

Why Fentanyl Is So Much More Deadly Than Heroin

“Fentanyl is always mixed into something else. So you’re putting a lot of trust in your dealer. If you make a batch with just a little more, then you see overdose increases in spots in city.” So there are a lot of ways in which the use of fentanyl can go wrong.

How fentanyl is making deadly drugs even deadlier

But it'll take more than a touch to overdose.

You can’t overdose on fentanyl by touching it

The myth that you can, however, is genuinely dangerous.

‘Historically tragic’: why are drug overdoses rising among Black and Indigenous Americans?

The staggering increase highlights the shifting dynamics and focus of the opioid crisis, long considered a white, rural issue.

A High-Tech Strategy for Keeping Drug Users Safe: Analyzing Their Fentanyl

Machines that examine samples of drugs can cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, but experts say they are an increasingly vital tool in stemming overdoses.

After Prince’s Tragic Overdose, Here’s What You Need to Know About Fentanyl

People who use fentanyl often don’t know they’re taking it. In general, fentanyl used to cut heroin is not being diverted from medical facilities but comes from clandestine labs often in other countries, synthesizing large quantities of cheap, pure fentanyl. Fentanyl has become an attractive cutting agent, since its increased sedative potency can be perceived as strengthening a batch of heroin.

As Fentanyl Overdoses Rise, How to Keep Loved Ones Safe

Drug overdoses have reached record highs. Experts offer tips to talk about opioids with your family.

Doctors have been overprescribing fentanyl for years and the FDA hasn't been able to stop it

A new report shows up to half of potent fentanyl prescriptions were given inappropriately.

Fentanyl Drug Finds New Home in First Opioid Crisis Bankruptcy Deal

A bankruptcy judge approved the sale of Insys’s Subsys, with restrictions on how the drug is prescribed.

In Cities Where It Once Reigned, Heroin Is Disappearing

The diminishing supply should be a victory for public health and law enforcement alike. Instead, in cities like Baltimore, longtime users who managed to survive decades injecting heroin are now at far higher risk of dying from an overdose. That is because synthetic fentanyl, a deadlier drug that is much cheaper to produce and distribute than heroin, has all but replaced it. The dramatic rise of fentanyl, which can be 50 times stronger than heroin, has been well documented.

Inside Fentanyl’s Mounting Death Toll: ‘This Is Poison’

While a rise in overdose deaths shows the devastating consequences of the opioid’s spread, less is understood about how the drug has proliferated.

Most Drug Overdose Patients Not Tested for Fentanyl, Synthetic Opioids

New research suggests that only 5 percent of US drug overdose patients are tested for synthetic opioids, the leading killer of adults under 45, in the emergency room.

New data shows that Fentanyl kills more people than heroin

Just five years ago, fentanyl was one of the least common drugs to overdose on. Now it's surpassed heroin as the number one.

Opioid Hysteria Comes to Massachusetts Courts

This false belief about the danger of these drugs seems to stem from several unsubstantiated — though widely disseminated — media reports over the past year.

The China Connection: How One D.E.A. Agent Cracked a Global Fentanyl Ring

Fentanyl is quickly becoming America’s deadliest drug. But law enforcement couldn’t trace it to its source — until one teenager overdosed in North Dakota.

Touching Fentanyl Is Not Dangerous. Will This Video Finally Prove That?

The rumors swirling that you can overdose just by touching the powder are untrue, and prevent people from getting the critical help they need.

Fentanyl Tainted Pills Bought on Social Media Cause Youth Drug Deaths to Soar

Teenagers and young adults are turning to Snapchat, TikTok and other social media apps to find Percocet, Xanax and other pills. The vast majority are laced with deadly doses of fentanyl, police say.

Duragesic

A strong prescription pain medicine that contains an opioid (narcotic) that is used to manage pain severe enough to require daily around-the-clock, long-term treatment with an opioid, in people who are already regularly using opioid pain medicine, when other pain treatments such as non-opioid pain medicines or immediate-release opioid medicines do not treat your pain well enough or you cannot tolerate them.