How Worried Should You be About Fentanyl in the Drug Supply?

More ideas on contamination, drug markets, and what consumers should know.

First off, thanks to all those who recently read and subscribed to Substance after I wrote about cocaine being laced with fentanyl. Clearly, this is something people are interested in and worried about. It’s just nuts that all this is happening. I’m a millennial in my early 30s, and thankfully I do not party like I used to. But way back when, five years ago, this was not a problem! The only thing people had to worry about their cocaine was whether it would induce a massive No. 2 (re: poop) at the Karaoke bar.

It’s such an abject failure that there is so little by way of PSAs and public education about these problems. Instead of reality-based education campaigns that alert users about the dangers of the drug supply, the news media and the DEA are busy scaring suburban parents about fentanyl in Halloween candy. (I recently went on The New Republic’s podcast to talk about that social panic — check it out!)

I’ve gotten some more questions since yesterday’s post and figured the fentanyl in cocaine topic deserved a part two. Some questions are more complicated than others, like: How prevalent is fentanyl in the cocaine supply? Others asked what consumers can try and do to avoid accidentally ingesting fentanyl. Is there anyway you can taste, smell, or see if fentanyl is there? (That’s a no. Not really a way to taste or smell fentanyl). What can consumers do to protect themselves in case something goes wrong?

Before getting to all that, there’s a bit more to say about the supply-side dynamics, which ties into questions about the prevalence of this problem. How worried should everyone be?