Have you heard of "pink cocaine" in your area? Please fill out the form below if you have any information about this substance.

This week, NDEWS continues to highlight the counties with reoccurring alerts for higher-than-expected counts of overdose-related 911 EMS dispatches. In this report, counties with four or more days with alerts for non-opioid overdoses or opioid-related overdoses in the past eight weeks (September 14 to November 8) were identified. During this period, there were a total of five counties that met this criteria, including Kings County, NY; Lake County, FL; Northampton County, PA; Orange County, FL; and Wake County, NC. The number of overdose events occurring on days with alerts reached a high of 26. View the report here. 
 
Click here to read more about NDEWS Hotspot Alerts.

A study recently published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology, led by NDEWS Deputy Director Dr. Joseph Palamar, identified five cases of unreported exposure to a synthetic cannabinoid called BZO-4en-POXIZID, likely as an adulterant in other drugs, among a sample of New York City nightclub attendees who were surveyed and hair-tested. The authors note that they believe these are among the first detected cases of exposure, which appear to have occurred months prior to the Chinese class-wide ban on synthetic cannabinoids in 2021. Read the study here.

The DEA’s National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS) recently published a Drug Brief on substances co-reported with fentanyl from January 2013 to June 2023. The report notes that the number of fentanyl reports received by NFLIS-Drug began to increase dramatically in 2014, and fentanyl has remained in the top 25 most frequently identified substances nationally every year since. Read the report here.

Earlier this week, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), released the results of the 2022 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). Key findings from the report include that, in 2022, 48.7 million people aged 12 or older had a substance use disorder in the past 12 months; marijuana was the most-used illicit drug; and 59.8% used tobacco products, vaped nicotine, used alcohol, or used an illicit drug in the past month. Read the report here.

Earlier this week, NPS Discovery published Q4 2023 Scope Recommendations for NPS benzodiazepines, NPS opioids, NPS stimulants and hallucinogens, and synthetic cannabinoids. Read the report here.

A study recently published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine used natural language processing to identify mentions of “xylazine” from posts on drug-related subreddits. The authors found that xylazine is an unwanted adulterant, people who use drugs may be experiencing prolonged sedation, and xylazine withdrawal and xylazine use appeared to be more common in the Northeast. Read the study here.

A research letter published last week in JAMA Network Open evaluated online direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of off-label and unapproved ketamine in Maryland. Analysis showed that Maryland ketamine DTC advertising showed numerous misleading representations regarding treatment safety and efficacy. Read the article here.

Date: Wednesday, December 6, 2023 
 
Time: 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. ET 
 
Register here. 

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