The Drug Enforcement Administration in St. Louis, the CDC, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced that federal grantees may now use funds to purchase fentanyl test strips. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is cheap to manufacture and has infiltrated the U.S. drug supply, increasing fatal overdoses. It is similar to morphine but 50 to 100 times more potent. When a drug is laced with fentanyl a person can accidentally overdose, not knowing of its presence in the substance they are using.
These test strips can be put in drug overdose reversal bags so people who are using substances can test if it is laced with fentanyl, said Nichole Dawsey, the executive director of PreventEd.
“This is one way to keep folks alive,” Dawsey said.
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