News

Drug checking is a harm reduction strategy aimed at better understanding drug supplies and alerting people who use drugs about the dangers associated. Drug checking is increasingly being employed by public health agencies across the United States. The CFSRE and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health have developed a collaborative drug checking initiative. 
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Since the introduction of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) into the recreational drug supply more than a decade ago, public health and safety official have continued to ask “what drugs are next?” There have been many research initiatives aimed at tackling this question, including a new computer science algorithm – DarkNPS. While the program sound promising, not all scientists are convinced of its utility. CFSRE Associate Director Dr. Alex Krotulski was quoted saying “In a practical sense, nobody ever knows what’s coming next.”
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As the opioid epidemic continues in the United States, new synthetic opioids have emerged with alarming increased potency. Fentanyl remains the primary synthetic opioid identified in forensic casework, however, a new second tier of opioids has emerged – the “nitazenes”. According to ongoing research studies, nitazenes can be "way more potent than fentanyl, which is really scary," said CFSRE Associate Director Dr. Alex Krotulski.
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The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) under the Department of Justice (DOJ) has funded various research initiatives are the CFSRE, including grant opportunities that have helped facilitate the development of novel toxicology workflows and methodologies that are now used extensively by our NPS Discovery program. NIJ continues to support NPS Discovery and its hunt for new drugs of abuse in forensic toxicology and crime lab samples.
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