Where Data Tells the Story
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Perhaps the most dangerous thing about fentanyl is the fact that, due to its low price and high potency, it is often used to lace other drugs. Whether it’s heroin, cocaine, meth or counterfeit pills mimicking prescription opioids such as Vicodin or Oxycontin – fentanyl is frequently used to increase the potency of illicit drugs, often unbeknownst to the user. This hidden presence dramatically increases the risk of accidental overdose, since people may take what they believe is a familiar drug but are actually playing a game of Russian Roulette, always in danger of ingesting a lethal dose of fentanyl.
According to CDC data, synthetic opioids, i.e. mostly fentanyl, are now involved in 7 out of 10 overdose deaths in the U.S. after having contributed to a dramatic surge in drug-related mortality over the past decade. Due to the aforementioned, often hidden presence of fentanyl in other drugs, it has dramatically driven up overdose deaths involving drugs like cocaine or methamphetamine as well and is now involved in 76 percent of cocaine overdose deaths and in 66 percent of overdose deaths involving methamphetamine or other psychostimulants. Between 2013 and 2023, the number of overdose deaths involving cocaine has surged sixfold from less than 5,000 to almost 30,000 – an increase almost entirely driven by the rise of fentanyl. The same trend can be observed for meth and other psychostimulants, which were involved in 35,000 overdose deaths in 2023, up from 3,600 ten years earlier.
The following chart, based on the latest CDC data, illustrates what makes fentanyl such a vicious drug. Incredibly potent and dangerous on its own, it turns the use of other drugs into a deadly gamble.