The NDEWS Weekly Briefing focuses on our Sentinel Site Directors (SSD) report, which highlights trends involving carfentanil in the local drug supply. This report revisits earlier NDEWS findings from the May 2025 SSD report in addition to our most recent findings from our latest NDEWS Special Report that was published in Issue 271.

Additionally, we feature our NDEWS Funeral Directors Network Winter 2026 Quarterly Report. For this report, we collected insight on the number of calls taken and shifts in the caseloads from the Funeral Directors Network over the past 6 months.

As always, we welcome your input.

Our Sentinel Site Directors were recently asked about trends involving carfentanil in the local drug supply. This report represents a follow up of the May 2025 SSD report on carfentanil featured in Issue 240 of the NDEWS Weekly Briefing.

At that time, there were sporadic reports of carfentanil detections across the US signaling a possible reemergence of the fentanyl analog. Similar reports have continued into this year, which we explored more recently in February's Issue 271 of the NDEWS Weekly Briefing. While its prevalence is rarer in some places than others, all site directors (n=14) noted presence of carfentanil in the current report. Click here to see the overview in full.

Click here to read more about NDEWS Sentinel Site Reports.

The tables below provide insight on the number of calls taken and shifts in the caseloads from the Funeral Directors network over the past 6 months. The type of geographic jurisdiction respondents work in evenly split with 50% working in urban areas, while the other 50% working in mix of urban and rural.

A recently published study in Addictive Behaviors led by Joohyun Park, co-authored by NDEWS Co-Investigator and Sentinel Site Director Bruce Goldberger, examined drug positivity, co-detection patterns, and demographic associations across 14 drug categories in patients seeking substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. The cross-sectional study analyzed 2023 urine drug testing data from 99,224 patients and screened for 14 drug categories. This study highlights variations in substance presence and co-detection across 14 drug categories in SUD treatment patients. Click here to read the full study.

Are you committed to advancing the science of substance use and public health? The University of Florida’s NIDA-funded T32 Training Program offers predoctoral and postdoctoral scholars an exceptional opportunity to launch impactful research careers focused on NDEWS!

What We Offer:
- Interdisciplinary training at the intersection of addiction science, epidemiology, and surveillance
- Mentorship from leading UF faculty in epidemiology, public health, psychology, medicine, and more
- Hands-on research with landmark and important NIH-funded projects and access to rich data
- Career development support, including grant writing, publishing, and professional networking
- A collaborative, inclusive research community committed to reducing the burden of substance use

Eligibility:
- US citizens or permanent residents
- Interested in a PhD in Epidemiology, or early-stage postdoctoral fellows
- Demonstrated interest in substance use, addiction, or public health research

Location: Gainesville, Florida — a dynamic hub for scientific innovation with high quality of life and low cost of living.

Dear friends of NDEWS,

Have you ever been to a College on Problems of Drug Dependence meeting? If not, you are missing an opportunity to learn about drugs from the bench to the community. Many of us have made lifelong friends by attending the annual meeting. This year, the conference will be in delightful Portland, Oregon! If you have never been before and want to learn more about the meeting and organization, click here.

We’d also love to see you at the NDEWS Summit on June 13, at 2 pm.

We hope to see you there!

The NDEWS team

Register for CPDD here.

📅 Date: Saturday, June 13, 2026

🕑 Time: 2:00 pm - 6:00 pm PT

📍 Location: Oregon Convention Center & Hyatt Regency Portland

The NDEWS Weekly Briefing curates emerging data and findings from across the Early Warning Network, which includes three core components: our Scientific Advisory Group (SAG), comprised of national experts and federal partners; our Sentinel Site Directors (SSDs), who lead local surveillance in key geographic regions; and our Community-Based Health Experts, who provide on-the-ground insights from populations most impacted by drug trends. Together, these contributors generate timely, multidisciplinary and impactful information, ranging from peer-reviewed research findings to local surveillance data. These contributions inform public health and research communities.

You can share the NDEWS Weekly Briefing with friends, colleagues, and others who would benefit from information on recent and relevant news, articles, and data related to novel drug trends in the US and globally by clicking here.

Share your research, news, and events through our submission form.

Share information on drug trends in your community through our get involved form.
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For more information on NDEWS' efforts, visit our website.

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If you miss or want to learn more about NDEWS Original Content, you can find our archived content on the NDEWS website:

     • NDEWS Hotspot Alerts using substance-related EMS data
     • NDEWS Rapid Street Reporting (RSR) survey data reports
     • NDEWS Web Monitoring Team Reddit Alerts
     • NDEWS Sentinel Site Reports
     • Previous issues of the NDEWS Weekly Briefings

The Weekly Briefing is a newsletter published each week by the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS) Coordinating Center, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (U01DA051126) to the University of Florida (MPI: Cottler (contact), Co-Is: Goldberger, Nixon, Striley), NYU Langone Health (MPI: Palamar), and Florida Atlantic University (Co-I: Barenholtz). Any item may be reproduced provided the source is acknowledged.