For years, fentanyl has become an increasingly ominous part of the U.S. illegal drug trade – a powerful and cheap synthetic opioid that drastically increased the risk of overdose. Now, it appears to be drying up.
Why?
So far, experts haven’t settled on one conclusion, and there are several possible reasons, according to a recent deep dive into the subject by NPR. These include increased cooperation between the U.S. and China and crackdowns on Mexican drug cartels. However, the drop has been “unprecedented” and there are also other, stranger factors at play.
One of those is a substance called BTMPS. Researchers who lab test street fentanyl have often found it watered down with this industrial chemical.
According to the Center for Forensic Science Research & Education, BTMPS is used as a light stabilizer and was initially evaluated for use in plastics, though it has reportedly been used in pharmaceutical packaging.
“Communications regarding a strange new opioid adulterant (later confirmed as BTMPS) first began in June 2024 as the substance emerged in Portland Ore., Philadelphia Pa., and locations across the country,” said the CFSRE. “The CFSRE, in collaboration with the UNC Street Drug Analysis Lab, first tentatively determined the adulterant was likely BTMPS and later confirmed its identity via a reference material.”
Nabarun Dasgupta, an expert on street drugs at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill said some samples have been found with only BTMPS and no fentanyl at all, per NPR. Edward Sisco, a research chemist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology said there’s no indication that BTMPS can even get users high, making its appearance in street drugs rather mysterious.
“It’s commonly used to prevent UV degradation of plastics, and it has some other industrial uses as well,” he explained, according to NPR. Sisco said evidence indicates it possibly being added to fentanyl drug labs in Mexico. He added that, usually, new substances enter the drug market first at one geographical location and that it is uncommon to see something like BTMPS pop up all over the country at the same time.
Vanda Felbab-Brown of the Brookings Institution recently broke down how the fentanyl supply chain to the U.S. works. Around 10 years ago, fentanyl started arriving in the U.S. from China. In 2019, the Chinese government put strict regulations on fentanyl (which is used in legal applications as a strong painkiller for cancer patients and for other medical uses) but that didn’t stop the drug trade.
Instead, Chinese drug traffickers began supplying what is known as precursor chemicals that could then be combined to manufacture fentanyl. Today, Chinese criminal networks supply these precursor chemicals around the world. Often, they go to Mexican cartels, which then produce fentanyl that is trafficked and sold in the U.S.
Felbab-Brown noted that small criminal networks often handle the fentanyl trade, since there is not much profit associated in selling precursor chemicals. Fentanyl also has to be transported in small amounts to evade seizure.
“Most of the time they go by container ships. They leave ports in China like Hong Kong... other ports along the coast of China, [and] arrive in Mexico. In Mexico, they arrive principally into ports, Lázaro Cárdenas being one of them, and Manzanillo being another,” she said.
As tons of these precursor chemicals arrived in Mexico this year, the country faced what the Associated Press in April called a “paradox” – a shortage of legal fentanyl needed for medical uses. According to the AP, this was “reported in a study by Mexico’s National Commission on Mental Health and Addictions,” that did not give a reason for the shortage of the synthetic opioid.
That report also said the shortage was a worldwide problem. The Pharmacy Times also reported on legal opioid shortages in the U.S. in September 2023.
That year, fentanyl was the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. It also said the administration seized 77 million fentanyl pills and nearly 12,000 pounds of fentanyl powder during the calendar year. That’s the most the DEA has seized in a single year, and it included enough doses to kill every American.
“In 2023, DEA took actions to disrupt every step of this fentanyl supply chain – from bringing the first-ever charges against Chinese chemical companies and their owners for supplying precursor chemicals, to charging and extraditing leaders, enforcers, and associates of the cartels in Mexico, to tracking down the criminal organizations and individuals in our communities responsible for the last mile of distribution of fentanyl on our streets and on social media,” the DEA said.
Felbab-Brown also said that 2023 ushered in a new era of cooperation between the U.S. and China regarding fentanyl, work the countries hoped would ease tensions in the de-facto “cold war” between the nations. She said that renewed cooperation continues today.
“There is a re-creation of a U.S.-Chinese counternarcotics working group that has been exploring venues for cooperation, and that has been producing outcomes on a wide set of issues,” Felbab-Brown said. “China has finally moved to scheduling some precursors and some drugs that the United States and other actors have wanted China to schedule.”
Since 2006, the U.S. has also been working with Mexican authorities to crackdown on cartels, though the Council on Foreign Relations described those efforts this year as “a deadly battle,” that has had limited success. Still, there have been some triumphs.
Jen Daskal, a deputy assistant to President Biden on the National Security Council who focuses on fentanyl policy said more fentanyl has been seized in the past two fiscal years than in the prior five years combined, according to NPR. This July, Attorney General Merrick B. Garland announced the arrests of alleged leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.
“Fentanyl is the deadliest drug threat our country has ever faced, and the Justice Department will not rest until every single cartel leader, member, and associate responsible for poisoning our communities is held accountable,” said Garland.
NPR reported that even cartels announce last year that they would curb efforts to smuggle fentanyl into the U.S.
Then, this summer, researchers noticed the decrease of fentanyl on the streets.
Dan Ciccarone, a physician and street drug researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, sent a team to gather data on the city's streets in areas where illicit fentanyl has been a killer for years. They found something unexpected.
“The fentanyl supply is drying up for some reason,” said Dan Ciccarone, a physician and street drug researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, according to NPR. “Hang out on the streets, talk to people – the drugs are hard to find and more expensive.”
While NPR noted that there are some skeptics who question whether this drop is really happening, it also said some of the top drug policy analysts in the U.S. believe there’s evidence of a major disruption in the deadly fentanyl supply chain.
Felbab-Brown said many drug policy experts have been surprised by the disappearing fentanyl. She believes the evidence suggests that disruptions to supply may have occurred in Mexico. By weakening the potency of fentanyl, they may be hoping to reduce law enforcement focus on their operations.
“It could be their decision at the wholesale supply level to be adulterating fentanyl to reduce mortality. If that is the case, that is still a significant accomplishment by U.S. law enforcement, shaping markets and behavior,” she said.
Last month, Audacy also reported on a surprising drop in overdose deaths here in the U.S. (10% between April 2023 and April 2024) after years of increases. Some experts believe that the changes to the fentanyl supply are linked to this decrease.