The pipeline of deadly fentanyl into the U.S. may be drying up, experts say

October 1, 2024,
NPR Morning Edition

This summer, Dan Ciccarone, a physician and street drug researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, sent a team to gather data on the city’s streets in areas where illicit fentanyl has been a killer for years. They found something unexpected.

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent checks pedestrians’ documentation at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in San Ysidro, California. A growing number of experts believe the flow of deadly street fentanyl from Mexico into the U.S. has been disrupted, contributing to a drop in fatal overdoses.
Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images

“The fentanyl supply is drying up for some reason,” Ciccarone said. “Hang out on the streets, talk to people — the drugs are hard to find and more expensive.”

Kevin Donaldson in Burlington, Vermont. He says more people like himself are finding ways to survive the U.S. overdose crisis. Data shows overdose deaths nationwide are falling for the first time in decades.

When street fentanyl began spreading in the American street drug supply beginning in 2012, most experts believed the deadly synthetic opioid was unstoppable. Fentanyl is cheap, easy to make and hugely profitable. The black market supply chain that feeds U.S. demand for the drug is operated by some of the most sophisticated and ruthless criminal gangs in the world.

But Ciccarone said that over the past six months, he began hearing from street drug experts around the U.S. who also were seeing significantly less fentanyl and fewer overdoses.

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