What up dicknuggets.
I sat in on a presentation by a well-renowned DEA Forensic Chemist for a brief update on trends for 2015-2016. I figured I'd share some of the highlights here with ya'll morons just for shits and giggles. This talk was specifically focusing on synthetic cannabinoids, synthetic cathinones/stimulants, and synthetic opioids.
NDEWS
Note: majority of data derived from DEA Laboratory System
Purity
Across the categories, majority of products are fairly pure upon importation and are cut domestically. The impurities are typically reaction and manufacturing byproducts rather than cuts.
Synthetic cannabinoids
Typically cut with dimethyl sulfone, nicotine, caffeine, among others
Cathinones
Cuts vary widely: inositol, benzocaine, lidocaine, caffeine, 4-MeO-methamphetamine, quinine. One sample observed cut with fentanyl, another cut with acetyl-fentanyl
Fentanyl + analogues
Typically cut with dipyrone, quinine, caffeine
S015 Substance Seizure Demographics
Cathinones
~50% of all cathinones samples (n=401) submitted to the labs in were ethylone, next largest group ~29% were alpha-PVP. Interestingly, 2014 saw 4 seizures consisting of mixed cathinone/synthetic cannabinoids
Suspected NBOMe's
- 25I - 10 seizures
- 25C - 6 seizures
- 2C-B - 3 seizures
- for comparison, 30 LSD seizures in the same time period
Synthetic Opioids
Identification based on STARLIMS and NFLIS data.
- 10 fentanyl + analogue seizures in 2013, 40 seizures in 2014
- beta-hydroxy thiofentanyl (2 seizures)
- AcO-fentanyl (62)
- butyryl fentanyl (6)
- W-18 (2)
- 4-ANPP (precursor, 1)
- 83 substances unconfirmed (meaning they could not identify the substance)
- Many others (less interesting, furanyl fentanyl, some of the newer opiates coming out on the DNM's etc)
Tracking manufacturing source of seized illicit fentanyl + analogues has been hard due to lack of impurities and little batch to batch variation. Suggests a very skilled manufacturing facilities.
DEA is aware of U-47700 as an "emerging threat" but has yet to be encountered. Based on their 8 forensic labs, they see the biggest exposure to AcO-fentanyl on the northeastern seaboard + southern California + Arizona.
Morbidity and Mortality
NBOMe's seem to be the biggest driver of adverse health outcomes for the novel psychoactive substances. 19 deaths between 2012-2013, overdoses continue to increase in frequency in 2014-2015. Acetyl-fentanyl has been implicated in 50 deaths from 2013-2015
Interesting factoids
From 2005 to 2007 there was a huge uptick in the amount of non-medical illicit fentanyl being seen in the market. This product was averaging 20-25% purity at the wholesale level. It was tracked back to a single production factory in Toluca Mexico. This product was responsible for over 1,000 deaths.
Of particular interest to the darknet
- China has banned 116 new psychoactive substances (NPS) in 2015 alone.
- Internet markets are "absolutely" watched to identify trends in usage, no discussion on obtaining samples from these markets directly to obtain reference samples, etc.
- DEA shares information with Chinese authorities who are very interested "at the highest level" in ID'ing emerging threats.
You should x post this on /r/researchchemicals