New regulations governing methadone treatment for opioid use disorder go into effect in the US on October 2, 2024. As reported by the Associated Press on Sept. 20, 2024 ("US will let more people take methadone at home"):

(Editor's Note: The figures below were provisional and have been revised upward since publication. According to the CDC, using data available on August 4, 2024, in calendar year 2022 at least 109,413 people in the US were reported to have died from drug overdose and toxins in the unregulated drug supply. The CDC predicts that the final number of overdose deaths in calendar year 2022 will be 111,029. Source: Ahmad FB, Cisewski JA, Rossen LM, Sutton P. Provisional drug overdose death counts.

"This study presents an independent, laboratory-based assessment of the potential of the first commercially available NTS for drug checking applications. The NTS displayed limited lot-to-lot variability, with an experimental limit of detection for isotonitazene of 2000 or 3000 ng/mL. Twenty-four of the 33 evaluated nitazene analogues cross-reacted with the NTS at concentrations at or below 9000 ng/mL. The test strips consistently detected the presence of a nitazene analogue in 6 authentic drug samples.

"• The global burden of disease and injuries caused by alcohol consumption can be quantified for 31 health conditions on the basis of the available scientific evidence for the role of alcohol use in their development, occurrence and outcomes.

"• Worldwide, 2.6 million deaths were attributable to alcohol consumption in 2019, representing 4.7% of all deaths in that year.

"• The alcohol-attributable disease burden is heaviest among males: 2 million alcohol-attributable deaths and 6.9% of all DALYs among males and 0.6 million deaths and 2.0% of all DALYs among females in 2019.

"Use of hallucinogens in the past 12 months was similar for college and noncollege young adults (7.5% vs. 10.8%) in 2023. There were also no significant differences for past 12 month use of LSD (1.8% vs. 2.3%), hallucinogens other than LSD (7.4% vs. 10.4%), MDMA (ecstasy, Molly; 0.3% vs. 1.2%), and ketamine (1.8% vs. 0.9%; Table/Figure 96)."

"Among people aged 12 or older in 2023, 0.3 percent (or 828,000 people) misused fentanyl in the past year, including 0.2 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 17, 0.3 percent of young adults aged 18 to 25, and 0.3 percent of adults aged 26 or older (Table A.12B). Corresponding estimated numbers of people who misused fentanyl in the past year were 50,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17, 110,000 young adults aged 18 to 25, and 668,000 adults aged 26 or older.

"● The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving cocaine increased slightly from 1.6 deaths per 100,000 standard population in 2002 to 2.5 in 2006, decreased to 1.3 in 2010, then increased to 8.2 in 2022; the rate in 2022 was 12.3% higher than the rate in 2021 (7.3) (Figure 5).

"● The age-adjusted rate of drug overdose deaths involving psychostimulants with abuse potential (subsequently, psychostimulants), which includes methamphetamine, amphetamine, and methylphenidate, was 4.0% higher in 2022 than the rate in 2021 (10.4 compared with 10.0).

"In general, synthetic cathinones are classified as stimulants or amphetamine-type stimulants [109, 110]. However, the pharmacological effects of individual derivatives are strictly dependent on the type of substituents and their location, and the differences in pharmacological profiles between individual cathinone derivatives are considerable.

"The NPS phenomenon remains a considerable challenge due to its evolving nature. The range of compounds currently on the drug market is constantly changing, with new and previously unknown substances entering the market every year.