In June of 2021, the Nevada High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) Enforcement Group 3 arrested four members of a Drug Trafficking Money Laundering Organization (DTMLO) responsible for selling millions of dollars’ worth of cocaine on the dark web and transporting it through the United States Postal Services (USPS).
The increasing demand for opioids in the United States coupled with the availability of fentanyl presents a significant public health risk and negatively impacts officer safety. In 2018, the Arizona High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Counter Narcotics Alliance (CNA) task force seized tablets that appeared to be Xanax but actually contained a combination of cyclopropylfentanyl, methamphetamine, and a synthetic cannabinoid chemical.
This Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Intelligence Report contains new and updated information on slang terms and code words from a variety of law enforcement and open sources, and serves as an updated version to the product entitled “Drug Slang Code Words” published by the DEA in May 2017. It is designed as a ready reference for law enforcement personnel who are confronted with hundreds of slang terms and code words used to identify a wide variety of controlled substances, designer drugs, synthetic compounds, measurements, locations, weapons, and other miscellaneous terms relevant to the drug trade. Although every effort was made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information presented, due to the dynamics of the ever-changing drug scene, subsequent additions, deletions, and corrections are inevitable. Future addendums and updates to this report will attempt to capture changed terminology to the furthest extent possible.
The Special Testing and Research Laboratory’s Emerging Trends Program compiled the data for this report through a query of archived seizure and analysis information from drug evidence analyzed by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s laboratory system. This data is representative of drug evidence seized and analyzed in the date ranges annotated. This is not a comprehensive list of all new psychoactive substances and is not representative of all evidence analyzed by DEA. This data is a quarterly snapshot of the new psychoactive substance market in the United States.
Fentanyl is a Schedule II synthetic opioid originally developed to serve as both an analgesic (painkiller) and an anesthetic; however, its strong opioid properties have made it an attractive drug of abuse in the United States. Fentanyl, in its licit form, is diverted from the market on a small scale for personal use or sale. Illicitly manufactured and trafficked fentanyl is responsible for the current domestic crisis. Fentanyl, fentanyl-related compounds, and the precursor chemicals needed to produce these substances originate in China and transit Mexico or Canada enroute to U.S. markets. It is believed that illicit fentanyl manufacturing is occurring in Mexico. Moreover, small-scale production facilities have been discovered in the United States and Canada.
The Special Testing and Research Laboratory’s Emerging Trends Program compiled the data for this report through a query of archived seizure and analysis information from drug evidence analyzed by the Drug Enforcement Administration’s laboratory system. This data is representative of drug evidence seized and analyzed in the date ranges annotated. This is not a comprehensive list of all new psychoactive substances and is not representative of all evidence analyzed by DEA. This data is a quarterly snapshot of the new psychoactive substance market in the United States.
This Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Intelligence Report contains information from a variety of law enforcement and open sources. It is designed as a ready reference for law enforcement personnel who are confronted by many of the hundreds of slang terms used to identify a wide variety of controlled substances, designer drugs, and synthetic compounds. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of the information presented. However, due to the dynamics of the ever-changing drug scene, subsequent additions, deletions, and corrections are inevitable. Further addendums to this report will attempt to capture changed terminology, to the extent possible. This compendium of drug slang terms has been alphabetically ordered, and identifies drugs and drug categories in English and foreign language derivations.
The analysis of drug-related overdose death data plays a pivotal role in law enforcement’s efforts to identify and combat drug suppliers, and ultimately drug abuse and related overdoses. At the most basic level, the drugs that contribute to death are an indicator of drug availability in the user market. Analysis of this data also highlights geographic patterns of abuse and identifies at-risk populations, and when coupled with drug treatment statistics, law enforcement drug seizure data, and public health indicators, allows for multi-disciplinary data-driven decisions regarding resource placement and strategic initiatives.
In January 2016, EPIC published Intelligence Note 02303-16a, this product provided analysis of data provided by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and open source reporting that indicated Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) continued to operate and profit from marijuana sales in legalized U.S. marijuana markets. EPIC research further showed that legalization of marijuana in some U.S. markets had not adversely impacted TCO profitability in marijuana markets, and that the effort of legalization had conversely brought new opportunities for illicit profits from marijuana sales. As of January 2017, EPIC research indicates that TCOs continue to exploit legalized marijuana markets in the United States.
In the last several years, U.S. Law Enforcement has seen a dramatic increase in the availability of dangerous synthetic opioids. A large majority of these synthetic opioids are structural derivatives of the synthetic drug “fentanyl.” Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid currently listed as a Schedule II prescription drug that mimics the effects of morphine in the human body, but has potency 50–100 times that of morphine. Due to the high potency and availability of fentanyl, both transnational and domestic criminal organizations are increasingly utilizing these dangerous synthetic opioids as an adulterant in heroin and other controlled substances. The presence of these synthetic opioids in the illicit U.S. drug market is extremely concerning as the potency of these drugs has led to a significant increase in overdose incidents and overdose-related deaths throughout the nation.