On December 3, the Drug Enforcement Administration launched Fentanyl Free America, “a comprehensive enforcement initiative and public awareness campaign aimed at reducing both the supply and demand for fentanyl.” The campaign itself is mostly a recap of drugs seized in October and an invitation for people to send the agency tips about their neighbors, but it also appears to reveal that since 2024 the average purity of pressed pills in the unregulated opioid supply has dropped by about 42 percent.
The new campaign’s promotional material states that in fiscal year 2025, 29 percent of fentanyl pressed pills contained a “potentially lethal dose.” This is down from about 50 percent in 2024, and about 76 percent in 2023.
In previous years the agency has announced this data in a more direct way, but it appears that the December 3 press release about launching Fentanyl Free America is serving as the announcement for 2025. The “29 percent” statistic has already been added to various DEA pages like Campus Drug Prevention and Just Think Twice, but as if it’s always been there, even though some of the accompanying data have not been updated from previous years.
The DEA did not directly answer Filter‘s inquiries about whether this was the first time the data had been released to the public, but simply pointed to its December 3 press release. It would make sense if the agency has lost interest in promoting the data, now that it doesn’t look as scary. It does tend to make these announcements toward the end of the year.
Around 2016, the DEA began using its “deadly dose” narrative—you know the one, about how just 2 mg of fentanyl, an amount small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil, is potentially lethal for the average American adult. In 2017 the agency’s lab testing showed that about one out of 10 fentanyl pressed pills contained 2 mg or more. That figure climbed steadily until 2023, when it peaked at more than seven out of 10 fentanyl pressed pills, or 76 percent.
Then, in 2024, lab data appeared to show the purity in fentanyl pressed pill supply reversing course—dropping the “deadly dose” estimate to five out of 10 pills. Now it’s less than three out of 10.
The “deadly dose” premise itself is not sound, but if you uncouple that concept from the rest of these updates then they’re useful for understanding the current trajectory of the unregulated fentanyl supply, and what dose manufacturers appear to be aiming for.
The purity of fentanyl powder samples tested by the DEA in 2025 was 10.3 percent. (This isn’t saying that 10.3 percent of powder samples contain a “deadly dose”—it’s an “apples and oranges” situation. The DEA is explaining pills one way and powder another.) That’s down from 11.36 percent in 2024 and 19.5 percent in 2023, or about a 10-percent decrease and 47-percent decrease, respectively.
Instead of telling the public the odds of a fentanyl pressed pill containing at least 2 mg, a more useful way for the DEA to present the data each year would be to tell the public the average purity, which is what the agency is doing for powder samples.
For example, take the 2024 “deadly dose” update since it happened to be five out of 10 fentanyl pressed pills. The takeaway should not be that there’s a 50-percent chance these pills will kill you, because that’s not necessarily useful to anyone, but that the dose manufacturers seem to be aiming for is about 2 mg and there remains a huge margin of error.
“Poly-drug organizations” sounds vaguely like it might mean something new, but it appears to just be referencing the existence of meth and cocaine.
“The threat of poly-drug organizations … that traffic a portfolio of drugs opposed to a single substance became even more apparent during Operation Fentanyl Free America,” the DEA stated in its press release. “Aside from producing less potent fentanyl, the cartels have increasingly diversified their operations in an attempt to minimize their risks and maximize profits.”
“Poly-drug organizations” sounds vaguely like it might mean something new, but it appears to just be referencing the existence of meth and cocaine.
Thirty DEA field divisions—23 domestic and seven foreign—”initiated Operation Fentanyl Free America in October,” apparently by doing the same or slightly more drug enforcement than they were doing before. Their individual press releases have been trickling in a few at a time, and while most have not elaborated further about “poly-drug organizations,” St. Louis and Omaha stated that this threat “was evident in October with the seizure of more than __ pounds of methamphetamine and nearly __ pounds of cocaine” across their respective field divisions.
Mostly the information the DEA wants the public to know is that as of December 1, it’s seized over 45 million fentanyl pressed pills and more than 9,320 pounds of fentanyl powder, and gotten 347 million “potentially deadly doses” off the streets.
The DEA will always say this stuff, and it will never mean anything. The drug supply is not finite. It hasn’t decreased by 45 million pills. Picture the DEA standing in a little boat, bailing out water with a little bucket, continuously announcing how many gallons it has removed as if those are the numbers that matter.
Top and inset images via United States Drug Enforcement Administration
