Acetylfentanyl Stats & Data

2013–2015

The proliferation of acetylfentanyl precipitated a significant public health crisis, particularly in the United States and Europe. Between March and May 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a health alert following fourteen overdose deaths among intravenous drug users in Rhode Island, with victims ranging in age from 19 to 57 years. Pennsylvania experienced a pronounced outbreak, prompting state authorities to request that coroners and medical examiners screen for acetylfentanyl. This investigation attributed at least fifty fatalities to either fentanyl or acetylfentanyl during the first half of 2013. Florida similarly reported a rise in fentanyl and acetylfentanyl-related deaths beginning in late 2013. By July 2015, the DEA had confirmed fifty-two fatalities involving acetylfentanyl in the United States between 2013 and 2015. In Europe, acetylfentanyl was analytically confirmed in thirty-two fatalities across four member states between 2013 and August 2015, with Sweden recording twenty-seven deaths, the United Kingdom two, Germany two, and Poland one. The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction issued an alert about the drug in September 2015 following twenty-two confirmed deaths. More broadly, fentanyl analogs have been responsible for hundreds of deaths throughout Europe and the former Soviet republics since a resurgence in their use began in Estonia in the early 2000s.