To stop the next drug crisis, the U.S. should look abroad

The illicit drug trade is becoming more deadly — and more unpredictable. Although the dangers of fentanyl are now well known, traffickers continue to diversify, experimenting with an array of new synthetic substances, many of which have never been tested on humans. 

The rise of these lab-made drugs has ushered in a new era, one in which illicit producers can rapidly develop highly potent substances using widely available chemical precursors. The scale of this shift is staggering: The United Nations has identified 1,446 new psychoactive substances worldwide, more than double the number reported a decade ago. By the time new synthetic drugs are identified in the U.S. it is often too late. 

This rapidly evolving drug landscape underscores a critical vulnerability in the U.S. response: We currently lack sufficiently integrated real-time data to detect and respond to emerging threats before they are fully formed. Today, even our best data sets suffer from time lags and inaccuracies. Overdose death rates, for example, often aren’t validated until several months after they occur. In many ways, the U.S. is “flying blind.”  

Significant gaps remain in how the U.S. collects and shares data. The first step, as they say, is admitting you have a problem. At the recent Rx and Illicit Drugs Summit in Nashville — widely considered the country’s leading forum for drug policy solutions — Sara Carter, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, acknowledged these shortcomings. She announced several new initiatives to help close the........

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