May 14, 2024
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A new study funded by the National Institutes of Health's (NIH's) National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has found that there were 115,562,603 pills containing fentanyl seized by law enforcement in 2023, which is 2,300 times greater than the number seized in 2017. The proportion of fentanyl pill seizures to the total number of fentanyl seizures more than quadrupled during that time, with pills representing 49% of illicit fentanyl seizures in 2023 compared to 10% in 2017. NIDA Director Nora D. Volkow, MD, was quoted in an NIH news release saying, "Fentanyl has continued to infiltrate the drug supply in communities across the United States and it is a very dangerous time to use drugs, even just occasionally . . . Illicit pills are made to look identical to real prescription pills, but can actually contain fentanyl. It is urgently important that people know that any pills given to someone by a friend, purchased on social media, or received from any source other than a pharmacy could be potentially deadly - even after a single ingestion." Click here to read more on this story, and click here to access the study itself. |
