(5 cases) and Whatcom
(2) Counties. Quarterly data provided by the Forensic Laboratory Services Bureau are used to identify drugs that appear to be increasing in law enforcement seizures in the 2 most recent quarters. (Data are preliminary and will change. For more on the data, see the details at the end of the page). We show significant increases in crime lab submissions associated with a given county (or the whole state) testing positive for a given drug. We define a “significant increase” or jump as a quarterly count more than twice as large as seen in the average quarter over the prior 3 years. We focus mainly on notable increases versus overall trends.
Due to experience with medetomidine on the East Coast, harm reduction and addiction medicine professionals in Washington have been preparing for the arrival of this strong sedative in the illicit fentanyl supply here. The King County Medical Examiner has reported a death involving medetomidine in 2024, but it was not seen in other data until being found in community drug checking samples in May of 2025. It was first identified in cases submitted to the state crime lab for analysis in July, with 7 cases in the quarter divided between King (5 cases) and Whatcom (2) Counties.
King County saw 2 cases positive for carfentanil, a fentanyl analogue that is much more potent than fentanyl itself. Both cases had fentanyl in the same submission. Chelan
, Snohomish
, Spokane
, and Yakima
Counties have each seen one such case so far in the quarter. Spokane County also had 2 cases positive for buprenorphine, most commonly prescribed to treat opioid use disorder.
Led by Grant County (note the third quarter is prime Gorge season), there were 24 cases statewide positive for ketamine.
Again led by Grant County, there were 14 cases statewide positive for LSD in the quarter.
Grant and Whatcom Counties saw large numbers of cases positive for cocaine.
Grant County
(12 cases) and Snohomish County (2) saw jumps in cases positive for phenethylamines including but not limited to MDMA (methylenedioxymethamphetamine, a.k.a. ecstasy) and MDA (methylenedioxyamphetamine, a.k.a. Sally).
For the state as a whole, a notable increase in cases positive for carfentanil saw 7 cases, 5 of which were submitted with fentanyl itself. As shown below, 5 of the 7 were found east of the mountains. Individual counties saw jumps in several other drug categories.
BTMPS is a new adulterant associated with fentanyls. Because it was essentially unheard of before the summer of 2024, the count in every quarter represents a jump over the prior 3 years' average.
Three counties saw notable increases in fentanyls. The vast majority of these were positive for fentanyl itself, but Pierce County also saw a jump to 5 cases positive for fentalogs.
Displaced by fentanyl for the past several years, a single case of heroin can now represent a jump. The increase in Pierce County is, however, notable.
Five counties saw increases in Q2 in cases positive for meth.
Led by King County, six counties saw jumps in the number of cases positive for cocaine.
Seven counties had increases in cases positive for MDMA. Some of those were among the 8 counties that saw jumps in cases positive for one or more tryptamines, a category that includes designer tryptamines such as DMT as well as LSD and psilocybin (most cases referenced included psilocybin). Finally, although legal in the state of Washington, Pierce County
(5 cases) and Snohomish County (3) saw jumps in cases positive for cannabis.
In the three years before the Blake decision, and after, two drug classes stood out for how often they have had increases: fentanyl and fentanyl analogues (or fentalogs). Although, as noted, quarter is a rough representation of time, we present time trends by quarter to illustrate the changes in the presence of these substances in Washington state. Click on the Fentanyl series name in the legend to turn that series off and better see the others. Due to recent concern, we have added counts of cases positive for carfentanil, which are included in the fentanyl analogues count. (Note that decreases in the most recent quarters may be due to the incompleteness of the testing results, and may change after updating.)
State v. Blake: On February 25 2021 the Washington State Supreme Court essentially struck down the State’s felony drug possession law. Community reports from law enforcement and jails indicated an immediate decline in arrests and incarcerations for drug possession cases. On May 13 2021 the Governor signed SB 5476, immediately making drug possession for adults a divertible offense for the first two cases with subsequent charges a misdemeanor. Law enforcement agencies are to refer divertible cases to local recovery navigator programs. On July 1 2023, SB 5536 replaced 5476, now making possession a (more serious) gross misdemeanor but with diversion opportunities. The resulting increase in cases has resulted in differential backlogs at state crime labs. Click on "Total cases" in the legend to see the statewide effect on crime lab cases positive for any drug.
Another drug category of recent concern is the non-prescription or designer benzodiazepines. The rise in "street Xanax" does not appear to be associated with an overall increase in all benzodiazepines. Instead, there appears to be a substitution effect: The first case of designer benzodiazepines identified in the state was one of the 268 total benzodiazepine cases in 2017. In 2019, illicit benzodiazepines comprised one quarter of the total, in 2020 the novel benzodiazepines were present in nearly one half, and in 2024 they comprised more than half of all benzodiazepine-positive crime lab cases in Washington.
How does the increase in fentanyls shown above fit into the larger picture of major drugs in crime lab data in recent quarters? We present quarterly counts of cases positive for the major drug categories presented on our statewide yearly trends in major drugs in crime lab evidence page. The fentanyl and fentalog numbers shown above are in the "Other opioids" series below, which since the advent of fentanyls in Washington is now almost entirely fentanyls. Benzodiazepines are included in the Depressants series. (Recall that decreases in the most recent quarters may be due to the incompleteness of the testing results, and may change after updating.)
Crime lab data are a partial indicator of the supply of illegal drugs or prescription drugs that are controlled substances and suspected of being purchased or sold illegally. The data presented here are the results of the Washington State Patrol’s Crime Lab chemistry testing of samples submitted by law enforcement. Most data are from local or state law enforcement, while larger federal cases are not tested by the state lab. The data provide important insights into the supply of drugs, in part due to the use of precise chemical testing which indicates exactly which substance is present. They also have numerous important limitations.
Truly new drugs present a challenge for crime lab testing: the need for a standard to which to compare the lab sample for identification. Cannabimimetics, non-prescription benzodiazepines, and novel psychoactive drugs (e.g., variations of MDMA), for example, are constantly changing. Often when a particular formulation gains enough notoriety--usually, being made illegal or causing a widely reported death--to warrant a standards company producing a chemical standard and a crime lab buying it, the formulation is changed. Thus, time trends in identified crime lab cases likely do not capture the initial rise of such a novel substance.
There are difficulties with reliably assigning a case to a particular quarter. First, the date entered as the received date for a particular case may be a few days after when the case actually arrived at the lab, which might put it into the next quarter. This date clearly comes after the actual arrest. Furthermore, testing takes time, and so results may not come until a subsequent quarter. Sometimes the initial request is for only some of the evidence from a case to be tested, and so the other items might be tested later at prosecutor request, adding further delay between submission and result. Lab backlogs further result in positive case counts months after actual seizure.
In sum, "quarter" does not mean when law enforcement seized the drug, and counts will likely change. All data presented here are preliminary. In order to smooth the jumps, we compare the current quarter to the average quarter over the prior 3 years (a rolling 12-quarter comparison period). The presence of jumps is muted by the Blake decision.
Please refer to the other crime lab data pages for further insight: