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Fentanyl, a pervasive killer in America’s illicit drug supply, is increasingly landing in the hands of teens across the region and nation, worrying providers who say treatment options for youths are limited. Across the country, fentanyl has largely fueled a more than doubling of overdose deaths among children ages 12 to 17 since the start of the pandemic, according to a Washington Post analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data released this month. (Portnoy and Keating, 5/22)

People in Baltimore have been dying of overdoses at a rate never before seen in a major American city. In the past six years, nearly 6,000 lives have been lost. The death rate from 2018 to 2022 was nearly double that of any other large city, and higher than nearly all of Appalachia during the prescription pill crisis, the Midwest during the height of rural meth labs or New York during the crack epidemic. (Zhu, Thieme and Gallagher, 5/23)

Fentanyl-related overdose deaths hit a new high in 2023 as law enforcement seized record amounts of the synthetic opioid, official data shows. At least 1,089 people died from fentanyl poisoning last year, up 18.4% from 920 the year before, according to preliminary data released by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. (Cabral, 5/22)  

Fentanyl test strips are sold online and easily obtained free from many public health departments. They’re touted as a harm reduction tool to help drug users determine whether fentanyl is present in a pill or powder. But Sheriff’s Deputy Patrick Craven, the lead detective of the newly formed opioid response team in rural Placer County, California, warns that the test strips are now being used by drug dealers who post photos on social media showing “negative” test results to advertise that their drugs are “clean.” (Nguyen and Blankstein, 5/22)

A WIRED investigation found thousands of Eventbrite posts selling escort services and drugs like Xanax and oxycodone—some of which the company’s algorithm recommended alongside addiction recovery events. (Burgess and Mehrotra, 5/21)

A study in mice looked at how feelings of reward and withdrawal that opioids trigger play out in two separate circuits in the brain. (Lloreda, 5/22)