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Homeland Security officials on Tuesday announced a plan to increase fentanyl seizures and break up the supply chains and financial networks fueling the most lethal drug crisis in U.S. history. Officials said the department’s investigative unit, Homeland Security Investigations, will assign more agents to track shipments of precursor chemicals, primarily originating in China, used to manufacture the powerful synthetic opioid. (Miroff, 9/19)

An emotional New York City Mayor Eric Adams Monday denounced the suspects accused of the alleged opioid exposure in a Bronx day care last week, which left one toddler dead and sent three others to the hospital, and called for a "national assault" on the epidemic. ... City health inspectors conducted a surprise inspection of the facility on Sept. 6 and did not find any violations, according to City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan. "I'm very sorry, but one of the things that my child care inspectors are not trained to do is look for fentanyl. But maybe they need to," Vasan said at a news conference Monday evening. (Katersky and Pereira, 9/18)

More than 100,000 people died of an opioid overdose nationwide in 2022 and more than two-thirds of those deaths involved synthetic opioids. Synthetic opioids are substances that are synthesized in a laboratory and act on the same targets in the brain as natural opioids to reduce pain. In contrast, natural opioids — including heroin, morphine, and codeine — are naturally occurring substances extracted from the seed pod of certain varieties of poppy plants. (Li, 9/19)

The fentanyl crisis doesn't discriminate. It touches the youngest Minnesotans and its hold spans across demographics. Fentanyl poisoning and overdose deaths skyrocketed in the last few years. Some of the victims are children. It's making headlines in Minnesota. Two charged in the fentanyl-related death of a 17-month-old in Ramsey County. A Maple Plain mother charged with manslaughter after her 6-year-old son chewed on a drug-tainted dollar bill. A 7-year-old in St. Paul dead from fentanyl poisoning. A 1-year-old in Minneapolis. (Mayerle, 9/19)

Fentanyl, the powerful synthetic opioid, has become increasingly prevalent and affordable in Utah, state law enforcement officials told lawmakers. During a Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Interim Committee meeting on Monday, lawmakers were shown “alarming data” from members of the Utah Department of Public Safety. In the last few years, the synthetic opioid has increasingly turned up in seizures and fueled overdose deaths, said Tanner Jensen, director of the statewide information and analysis center at the Department of Public Safety. Fentanyl, he said, “is the greatest drug threat in Utah.” (Dunphey, 9/19)