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.
For the state as a whole, a notable increase in cases positive for carfentanil saw 5 cases. Individual counties saw jumps in several other drug categories.
In response to local and national attention to a new adulterant or impurity appearing in the unregulated drug supply, first identified by local community drug checking in July, the state crime lab in September added the chemical to the list of substance results. Bis(2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-4-piperidyl) sebacate (BTMPS) is used in making plastics, and its effects in the human body are not understood, nor is it clear why it has appeared in the drug supply, usually associated with fentanyl. Statewide, there were 86 cases positive for BTMPS in the fourth quarter (so far), of which 76 were submitted with one or more fentanyls.
Legally available only for veterinary use, xylazine is typically seen in combination with fentanyls. Xylazine cases are undercounted because it is not a controlled substance and is inconsistently reported in crime lab data. Data from other sources, including medical examiners and opioid treatment programs, indicates that xylazine was present in a small but growing percentage of cases in which fentanyls were identified in 2023, and these trends continued into 2024.
Eight counties saw notable increases in fentalogs. Two of the three such cases in Kittitas County included carfentanil, which is 30-100 times more powerful than fentanyl itself. Kittitas has seen 34 fentalog cases so far in 2024 after 30 total in the prior three years combined, and the two carfentanil cases represent the first carfentanil seen in crime lab cases associated with the county.
Led by Whatcom County, 4 counties saw jumps in the number of cases positive for cocaine. In 2012 through 2020 (the last full year before the Blake decision), Whatcom County saw no more than 29 cases per year positive for cocaine. So far in 2024 it has seen 34.
Whatcom County
had notable increases in cases positive for benzodiazepines (3 cases for legally available benzos and 1 for non-prescription benzos). Thurston
and Snohomish
Counties also saw two cases positive for one or more tryptamines, a category that includes designer tryptamines such as DMT as well as LSD and psilocybin.
Statewide, there were notable jumps in cases positive for one or more fentanyl analogues (fentalogs), xylazine, psilocybin, MDMA, and ketamine. In addition (and not shown by county) there were 11 cases positive for oxycodone and 5 for hydrocodone.
Twelve counties saw increases in fentanyl analogues, and six saw jumps in fentanyl itself, with three having increases in both. The analogues include substances that are structurally and functionally similar to fentanyl, some of which may reflect incomplete synthesis of fentanyl, and some of which are more potent than fentanyl itself.
As in the fourth quarter (above), xlyazine cases jumped in a number of counties in Q3 2024. Xylazine cases are undercounted because it is not a controlled substance and is inconsistently reported in crime lab data. Sixteen counties saw jumps in xylazine as this depressant adulterant spreads in the fentanyl supply, with 42 cases positive statewide. Each case represented here involved xylazine submitted with a fentanyl.
As noted above, BTMPS is a recent addition to the fentanyl supply and to the results reported by crime labs, so any result will represent a jump over the 3 years prior. Statewide, there were 105 cases positive for BTMPS in the third quarter, of which 89 were submitted with one or more fentanyls.
Statewide, there were 19 cases positive for psilocybin (hallucinogenic mushrooms), 13 cases positive for MDMA (ecstasy), and 9 cases positive for ketamine. A relatively (given population size) large portion of these cases came from Grant County, home to the Gorge Amhitheatre.
In all, 10 counties saw notable increases in methamphetamine. Asotin County had 3 cases in the quarter and has seen 6 cases positive for meth so far in 2024 after 5 total across 2022 and 2023.
Cocaine continued to see increases in preliminary third quarter crime lab data.
Pierce County
had notable increases in cases positive for non-prescription benzodiazepines (5 cases) and cannabis (6 cases). Clark County
(8 cases) and Snohomish County (3) also saw increases in cannabis-positive cases.
In the three years before the Blake decision, and after, three drug classes stood out for how often they have had increases: fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and non-prescription benzodiazepines. 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.
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 comprise 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: