The Pipeline of Deadly Fentanyl into the U.S. May Be Drying Up, Experts Say When street fentanyl began spreading in the American street drug supply beginning in 2012, most experts believed the deadly synthetic opioid was unstoppable. Fentanyl is cheap, easy to make and hugely profitable. The black-market supply chain that feeds U.S. demand for the drug is operated by some of the most sophisticated and ruthless criminal gangs in the world. But observers are hearing from street drug experts around the U.S. who also were seeing significantly less fentanyl and fewer overdoses. There are skeptics, people who question this trend, but some of the top drug policy analysts in the U.S., as well as experts with close ties to street fentanyl markets, believe the data shows a major disruption in the deadly fentanyl supply chain. "It's a development that many drug policy experts would not have imagined," said Vanda Felbab-Brown at the Brookings Institution, who studies international criminal organizations that make and smuggle fentanyl. She said drug gangs appear to be trafficking less fentanyl and are also "adulterating" or weakening the potency of the fentanyl being sold. "Everyone has been caught by surprise by the extent of the adulteration of fentanyl," Felbab-Brown said. Researchers generally agree there has been an "unprecedented" drop in fentanyl purity in some parts of the United States. Labs that test street fentanyl are finding it cut or watered down far more aggressively, often with an industrial chemical known as BTMPS. |