Fentanyl

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill test drug samples using a device known as a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer.CreditCredit.

[make it more difficult to test drugs](https://www.statnews.com/2022/09/08/fentanyl-test-strips-could-help-save-lives-in-many-states-theyre-still-illegal/), said Aaron Ferguson, a leader of the Urban Survivors Union, a group that represents harm reduction organizations and drug users. Harm reduction groups in the area had been unaware of a potentially dangerous opioid, metonitazene, that surfaced in the sample, he said. Dasgupta recalled a sample submitted by a harm reduction group in western North Carolina, which had received it from a drug user just across the border in Tennessee. And the effects of drugs can differ from batch to batch, which can have trace amounts of substances that sometimes cause odd and surprising sensations. Samples from the same drug dealer can contain different amounts of fentanyl, with other substances mixed in that might vary from dose to dose. In more than a dozen states, even the basic tools of drug checking, such as fentanyl test strips, are outlawed as drug paraphernalia; conservatives Law enforcement agencies have long been hesitant to share the results quickly or publicly for the purposes of helping drug users know more about the local supply. Drug users can learn what is in a substance before they use it, alert other users to possible dangers in the supply or find out why a drug led to an overdose or some other reaction. But the work needs more funding, experts say, in part because of how difficult it is to scale. President Biden is the first president to endorse the strategy, lending it a federal imprimatur that health experts say could transform how the United States contends with drug use. Drug policy experts say that while the exact number is difficult to determine, there are dozens of health departments, academic laboratories or harm reduction groups using machines for drug checking around the country, including in cities such as New York and Chicago. “Quick OD, half bag, weirdly lethargic after,” the anonymous drug user from Wilmington, N.C., wrote on a slip of paper the size of an index card, which came with the tube.