A recent analysis article published by Time Magazine and authored by Connor Greene examined the rising threat of nitazenes as the next potential wave in the ongoing U.S. opioid crisis. As recent U.S. efforts have increased to crack down on illicit fentanyl supply, new synthetic and potent opioids called nitazenes are appearing more frequently in the drug market. So far, nitazenes have already been detected in over a dozen U.S. states, raising concerns regarding increased incidence of associated overdoses and deaths.

According to the analysis, nitazenes’ presence in the market and their involvement in overdose deaths are likely being underreported, since the technology required to identify them isn’t widely used in autopsies, impeding their detection. Their emergence is being seen by scientists who track the spread of opioids around the country as a harbinger of a much different, more variable landscape of drugs about which comparatively little is known. In fact, scientists monitoring opioid trends view their emergence as a warning sign of a shifting and increasingly unpredictable drug landscape that remains poorly understood.

“We’re at this really unique inflection point where a lot of the fentanyl supply is contracting,” said Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, a scientist at the University of North Carolina’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, in his interview with Time. Currently, Dr. Dasgupta’s lab analyzes drug samples from over 40 U.S. states provided by approximately 200 public health agencies, clinics, hospitals, and health departments to provide up-to-date metrics on what drugs are present on U.S. markets.

So far, nitazenes were detected in samples from 15 states. Moreover, it was found that protonitazene and metonitazene, analogues of the drug that are similar in strength to fentanyl, are the most common on the East Coast. Furthermore, data from Tennessee has shown the greatest concentration of nitazenes in the U.S.

President Donald Trump’s 2026 budget proposal calls for eliminating certain CDC programs, including the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (NCIPC), which tracks opioid use and develops surveillance systems. Since the State Unintentional Drug Overdose Reporting System (SUDORS) operates under the NCIPC, experts warn its closure could weaken efforts to detect emerging drugs. The plan would cut $3.6 billion from the CDC overall, though Congress has yet to decide ahead of the September 30 deadline. However, Dr. Dasgupta noted that cracking down on one drug often drives the market toward more potent alternatives, a pattern seen when fentanyl supplanted heroin about a decade ago.

“There is no one consistent supply chain across all 50 states,” says Sheila Vakharia, a national expert on harm reduction and policy, in her interview with Time. “What we see when these new drugs take hold, is that they start off in one market, one region, and they start to saturate that geographic area, starting usually with a city, but then kind of spreading to the rural areas surrounding it.”

The analysis article concludes that nitazenes may not yet rival the scale of the fentanyl trade, but their rise signals a drug market in flux, including unpredictable shifts, growing diversification, and an uncertain future. “Fundamentally, an unregulated drug supply is going to always be changing,” Dr. Dasgupta said. “And we’re just at kind of a period of hyper-change that we’ve never seen before.”