The White House has warned about the rise of fentanyl offshoots up to 100 times more potent than the lethal drug, and it has already claimed the lives of thousands of Americans.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy released a drug threat notice on Tuesday alerting the public to fentanyl alterations, known as analogues, out of concern for “their increasing prevalence and potency.”
“Drug traffickers continue to produce and smuggle deadly substances into the United States,” ONDCP Director Sara Carter said in a statement. “This designation and accompanying notice provide the American people, first responders, and medical professionals with actionable information to protect themselves and their loved ones.”
ONDCP listed carfentanil, fluorofentanyl, and methylfentanyl as the newest substances seen mixed in with fentanyl. The three substances have been involved in the deaths of more than 12,500 people since 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Carfentanil is an elephant tranquilizer and up to 100 times as strong as fentanyl.
The Drug Enforcement Administration announced in May that the country’s fentanyl epidemic had become “even more unpredictable and lethal” as illegal drug producers had begun to combine fentanyl with sedatives, particularly xylazine, nitazenes, cychlorphine, and medetomidine.
Xylazine, known as “tranq” for its use in sedating horses, and medetomidine are legal drugs, but they are used by veterinarians to sedate animals. Nitazenes and cychlorphine are unregulated synthetic opioids, the latter of which is up to 10 times more potent than fentanyl. Fentanyl itself is up to 100 times more potent than morphine and 50 times stronger than heroin.
Fentanyl is a pharmaceutical drug reserved for rare medical situations, but it has been knocked off by Chinese chemical suppliers and Mexican cartel manufacturers in recent years in the latest iteration of the opioid epidemic.
Fentanyl can be made year-round and smuggled into the United States in small doses as opposed to marijuana or cocaine, which both come from plants that are harvested seasonally and must be smuggled in large quantities to be profitable. Fentanyl is also used as the main ingredient in counterfeit prescription pills produced in Mexico and moved into the United States. The pills look identical to real prescription sedatives, including Xanax, Percocet, and oxycodone, and are readily available across social media sites.
The DEA considers 2 milligrams of fentanyl, an amount that could fit on the tip of a pencil, to be lethal because it can put a user in a coma or cause death.
Nearly 90% of fentanyl seized was at U.S. ports of entry, primarily between the United States and Mexico, where body smugglers, commercial trucks, and passenger vehicles attempted to transport it through customs inspection booths.
The Trump administration had seen initial success cracking down on fentanyl smuggling at the border during its first term, but smuggling seizures peaked during the Biden administration. More than 6 billion potentially lethal doses of fentanyl were seized by federal law enforcement at the border in fiscal 2023, enough to kill all 330 million people 18 times.
The amount of fentanyl being seized by federal law enforcement at the nation’s borders has decreased sharply in President Donald Trump’s second term.
Adam Isacson, director for defense oversight at the Washington Office on Latin America, offered other reasons that less fentanyl is being seized at the border, including reduced demand in the U.S. as drug users have learned about fentanyl’s lethality, infighting among Mexican suppliers, and improved X-Ray scanners at ports of entry.
Government officials and private sector experts have pointed to a variety of reasons for the decrease in seizures, including the drug being produced in a non-pill form, reduced demand in the U.S., problems with production in Mexico, and better evasion of U.S. federal police at the border.
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In November, the U.S. and China reached an agreement that China would stop allowing exporters to send fentanyl precursors to producers in Mexican drug labs, where the final product is made before moving into the United States.
Last year, President Donald Trump signed into law legislation that permanently classifies fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, the highest possible rating.