A wave of homemade, synthetic drugs sweeps US and deepens crisis

Legenda da figura, O Quentin Sommerville da BBC se junta aos oficiais no Cook County enquanto eles realizam uma operação de madrugada.

• Published18 October 2026, 06:04 BST.

Assista ao documentário no YouTube, externo.

Warning: This story contains descriptions of drug-taking from the start and discusses suicide.

Alguns grãos de fentanil repousam no papel alumínio prateado como um canudo, segurados entre os lábios de Mike, pairam acima, enquanto um isqueiro de cigarro fica abaixo.

O veterano do exército de 48 anos está agachado no beco do bairro Linden, em Columbus, Ohio.

This drug will damn near make you do anything, unfortunately," he says.

The hit he's smoking cost three or four dollars.

You can snort too much and you can't take it back. Kind of like a gunshot. Can't call the bullet back," he says.

He burns the foil and inhales. As the opioid takes hold, he grips the fence behind him. He sways as a low moan comes from deep in his throat - he could be humming a tune.

Passamos alguns dias com Mike – ele tem sido nosso guia pelas ruas de trás do bairro. Todos parecem conhecê-lo e o consideram com carinho. Ele ajuda na loja de penhores local e no posto de gasolina, e é assim que alimenta sua dependência de opioides de 20 anos.

Synthetic opioids are more powerful and in plentiful supply, and they have transformed the drugs landscape.

Fentanyl, which is entirely man-made, is 50 to 100 times more powerful than heroin, which is cultivated from poppies. It is now often cut with synthetic tranquillisers, which make reviving overdose victims more difficult.

These are homemade threats, where cocktails of synthetics can be made in American basements and bathtubs.

Guerra das Drogas dos EUA: A Onda Sintética.

Extraordinary access shows how strong synthetic drugs are changing America's drug crisis.

Assista no iPlayer Fonte da imagem: Darren Conway/BBC Legenda da imagem: "Este medicamento quase vai fazer você fazer qualquer coisa, infelizmente," diz Mike enquanto acende alguns grãos de fentanil.

Image source, Darren Conway/BBCImage caption, Mike, a former army veteran, acts as our guide through the neighbourhood's back streets.

We have Naloxone (brand name Narcan) in our pockets, in case anyone on our team comes into contact with fentanyl or anyone around us overdoses. It's a nasal spray that immediately reverses opioid overdoses and its widespread adoption has transformed the number of fatal overdoses in the United States.

At its peak in 2022, 110,000 Americans were dying from overdoses, mostly from opioids. The number has been dropping since, down to around 70,000 last year. But that doesn't mean the opioid crisis is over.

É provável que o medicamento de reversão que tenho no bolso, que salvou dezenas de milhares de vidas de usuários de drogas, não teria funcionado em Mike. Porque ele não estava apenas fumando fentanil.

The pupils in his milky blue eyes shrink to pin pricks. "Opioids make your pupils go smaller, but not that small," he says in a singsong voice. Even the fentanyl, dangerous enough on its own, has other synthetics added.

When we ask what he thinks his drugs have been cut with, he replies: "Xylazine, and the one we can't pronounce.

Medetomidine é o que ele quer dizer. Assim como xyalzine, também é chamado de tranq e ambos são tranquilizantes sintéticos para animais. “Tranquilizantes de animais de grande porte,” disse um especialista em recuperação.

They help prolong the high from the fentanyl but are a sedative that slows breathing and, importantly, naloxone doesn't work against them. Xylazine also causes necrotic skin ulcers, wounds so deep they can make it down to the bone and are difficult to treat.

At the Glenwood Church on the other side of town, members of the Hope Dealer Community, a recovery group, gather for a weekly meeting. For many, their struggles are written in their care-worn faces, and their eyes are those of survivors of a great trauma.

They take to the stage at the front of the church and share their stories with a brutal and courageous honesty.

One man tells the story of his overdose in July 2022. Two paramedics worked on him, trying to save his life. He had naloxone drips in both arms. They hit him with the opioid reversal three times to no avail.

Isso é tudo, eu vou chamar isso," disse um dos médicos. Mas o outro insistiu em mais uma tentativa, e foi isso que salvou a vida dele.

As the crowd shouts encouragement, Tonya takes to the lectern. She recounts how her nephew died of an overdose while she was overdosing at the same time from crack cocaine, a stimulant spiked with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.

It's not luck. I'm supposed to be here," she says with tears in her eyes. The audience yells its agreement.

Fonte da imagem, Darren Conway/BBCLegenda da imagem, Membros da Hope Dealer Community, um grupo de recuperação, se reúnem para uma reunião semanal na Igreja Glenwood.

Image source, Darren Conway/BBCImage caption, One of those gathered at the church, Tonya, recounts how her nephew died of an overdose while she was overdosing at the same time.

Both in Columbus, and later in Chicago, we would hear of crack cocaine users who had died of overdoses after their drugs contained fentanyl. On the street, it's called a "hot dose.

Nos últimos 12 meses em Franklin County [Columbus], 78% das overdoses fatais são de estimulantes," explica Scott Sanders, 65, que dirige a Hope Dealers.

Scott is almost 10 years sober, a powerfully built man in his early 60s with an electric energy. When he asks the room to raise their hands if anyone has overdosed, most of the gathering does so.

The crisis has just shifted," Scott tells me afterwards. "The tragedy is stimulant users who are purchasing crack think that's what they're getting, and they're not.

They're getting crack mixed with fentanyl or other opioid cocktails and overdosing without being aware of it.

Fonte da imagem, Darren Conway/BBC. Legenda da imagem: Scott Sanders, 65, está quase 10 anos sóbrio e dirige Hope Dealers.

Overdose deaths among black men in Ohio are actually increasing, he adds.

His organisation works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on a drug sampling programme. Participants bring their needles or pipes for swabbing and the samples are sent to the CDC's laboratory in North Carolina.

Foi assim que descobrimos que os instintos de Mike estavam corretos; ele provavelmente não estava apenas fumando fentanil. Um dos kits de drogas que ele trouxe testou positivo para medetomidina.

The drug supply in 2026 is this: we think we are buying crack but we're not, we're buying a number of different things," says Scott. "Today it is mixed, not just cut, but mixed with other drugs such as fentanyl or meth, and then other adulterants chemicals that are made in basements.

And it was basement-made synthetic drugs that would cause a dramatic increase in overdose deaths one state over, in Illinois.

Eu encontrei um traficante em Chicago que trabalha para os cartéis mexicanos vendendo fentanil. Ele só falaria conosco se concordássemos em mascarar sua identidade.

Desafiado sobre seu papel nas 50,000 mortes anuais causadas pela crise de opioides, ele diz que sabe que está errado. Mas, quando questionado sobre por que continua fazendo isso, ele afirmou que o fim justifica os meios.

He told me that despite the latest efforts by the US government to target the cartels by declaring them terrorist groups and labelling fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction, his supply chain is as strong as ever.

When I ask him if the targeting of boats containing suspected traffickers by the Trump administration has made any difference, he replies that his product is still getting through from Mexico.

Se não passa por cima da parede, passa por baixo. Se não atravessa a fronteira, entra pela fronteira superior. Este jogo é sobre adaptabilidade.

And when I asked what has changed in his business, his answer was clear.

Synthetics. We haven't seen... what synthetics can do yet. It's not even the tip of the iceberg," he tells me.

Chicago's largest jail, one of the largest jails in America, is Cook County. Traditional drugs were usually brought into the jail in body cavities, so the jail had the same body scanners you find at airports to prevent that happening.

Em 2023, de repente vimos um aumento nas mortes por overdose, mas, ao mesmo tempo, vimos, em torno de pessoas que haviam falecido ou que revivimos, papéis espalhados por todo lado," explica o xerife Tom Dart, que dirige a prisão.

We were seeing paper that was being burned and all of this was completely novel.

The facility, which averages one or two overdose deaths a year, lost eight inmates that year to fatal seizures.

Filmagem de segurança mostra presos espasmando e colapsando. Também mostrou eles acendendo papel em micro-ondas nas cozinhas do bloco de celas.

It was indeed, as Dart said, a novel approach. Drugs were being mailed into the jail soaked in the pages of books and in letters.

Cannabinoids and being soaked in a range of other things that were then subsequently lit on fire and inhaled to get high", the sheriff explained.

Cannabinoides, às vezes conhecidos como K2, são uma versão totalmente sintética de um extrato da planta de cannabis. Eles são extremamente perigosos e foram responsáveis pelas convulsões fatais.

Image source, Darren Conway/BBCImage caption, In Chicago's largest jail, drugs were soaked in the pages of books and in letters.

In August, I joined Dart's corrections officers as they prepared for an early morning raid on the jail's high security D block. Around two dozen officers tread lightly and speak in hushed tones as they gather outside the block door.

Don't let them hear you. Silence, silence," commands one of the officers leading the search.

As the officers rush in, I smell burning paper in the air and can hear the sound of toilets flushing, presumably as contraband is hurriedly disposed of.

As the search gets under way, the focus is on any paper in the cells - the books and letters belonging to inmates.

The detainees are escorted to a holding area as the cells are turned over. Every scrap of paper in the rooms is checked by the officers. There are burn marks on the vents in many of the cells, where inmates place smoulder tapers that allow them to ignite the drug-soaked paper.

Now every piece of post that enters the jail is scanned for moisture. Somewhere between a quarter and a fifth of all packages and letters test positive and are rejected.

Fonte da imagem, Darren Conway/BBCLegenda da imagem, Entre um quarto e um quinto de todos os pacotes e cartas que entram na prisão testam positivo por umidade.

Fora das muralhas da prisão, não é difícil encontrar os efeitos da onda de drogas sintéticas nas ruas de Chicago. No oeste da cidade, dia e noite, homens e mulheres estão curvados de joelhos, balanceando, como Mike fez, enquanto o fentanil e outros sintéticos correm por eles.

In the upscale Oak Park neighbourhood, the local metro station has a vending machine that dispenses naloxone for free. Nearby, a gaunt-looking man in a wheelchair has deep wounds in his legs, likely from xylazine use.

He's being tended to by 40-year-old Karen Bell.

Karen é uma profissional de recuperação do grupo Liv4Lali. Ex-usuária de heroína, ela está há 17 anos livre de drogas duras.

She exudes kindness, and when I ask her about the drugs being used now, she says, "so many things are being mixed in right now. And it's affecting our bodies, whether it's the wounds, whether it's the withdrawals - and sometimes wounds can extend to the point where it's life changing.

Sua organização, assim como Hope Dealers em Columbus, distribui tiras de teste que verificam drogas para fentanil, medetomidina, xilazina e outros adulterantes.

The drugs now, says Karen, are "way more dangerous.

Because before, back in my day, I stopped using heroin 17 years ago, right. That was still heroin. When you bought that you knew it was heroin. But now, when you buy a bag, you don't know really what it is," she tells me.

Fonte da imagem, Darren Conway/BBC Legenda da imagem: Karen, uma profissional de recuperação, cuida de um homem magro em uma cadeira de rodas em um bairro de alto padrão.

Dart has been sheriff of Cook County for 20 years, so I ask him how the war on drugs was progressing. "I don't think there's anybody involved with it who would sit there and say it's a raging success.

And the new problem, he says, reiterating the Chicago drug dealer, is synthetics.

A tradição sempre foi que a aplicação da lei desempenhava um papel ainda mais vital, pois tudo que era potente atravessava a fronteira, seja vindo da Colômbia, do México, da China ou dos campos de papoula do Afeganistão.

Now, with the explosion of synthetic drugs, people can do this in their house, in their sink, in their bathtub, you name it.

A vitória na guerra contra as drogas não virá apenas focando no lado da oferta, acrescenta o sheriff. “No centro, tem que haver um enorme tratamento de abuso de substâncias,” ele diz, mencionando vários programas de recuperação em funcionamento em sua prisão.

You can reduce the market if you can address people's issues with substance abuse. And I know many people who, after long struggles, have come out on the other side in a really good way.

Karen knows how difficult it is to quit. She was still using heroin when she got pregnant with her daughter, Abby, now 17. After our meeting at the metro station, I meet them both in a country park in a suburb outside Chicago.

With typical care, Karen tells me to watch out for the poison ivy as we walk along a muddy track.

It wasn't far from here, around 17 years ago, that she was at her lowest ebb.

Fonte da imagem, Darren Conway/BBC Legenda da imagem: Karen diz que sua gravidez foi uma oportunidade para se livrar das drogas. Ela está há 17 anos livre de drogas duras.

As the wind blows through a tall oak tree beside us, she says: "The day I found out I was pregnant, I was on my way to commit suicide. I was so fed up with trying to quit.

Cansado de viver em uma barraca na floresta, usando um balde, eu estava exausto de perder amigos e familiares, pois sentia vergonha.

A pregnancy test changed her mind. She then spent time in Cook County jail for theft. Her parents, sensing an opportunity for her to get clean, refused to pay her bail money.

So Karen got clean and Abby was born inside the jail.

Quando pergunto a Abby, que quer se tornar artista de tatuagem, se ela já foi tentada a experimentar drogas, ela diz: "Não, eu vi como isso atrapalha minha família demais, com meu pai, minha mãe, matando minha tia, meus tios.

You know, it's not worth it to get high for like a couple of hours.

She continues: "There's a lot of people are struggling, especially that our country is raising our prices, raising the prices on food and it's causing it. A lot of mental health now is very expensive so people can't get help, and one way they can turn to that is by drugs.

Generations of Americans have endured the drugs crisis, but it is never the same crisis. It has shifted from heroin, to prescription opioids to fentanyl and now to a whole new range of synthetics.

Administrações sucessivas lutaram — e perderam — a guerra contra as drogas. Os traficantes, os fornecedores, os cartéis e os usuários se adaptam, sempre alguns passos à frente dos esforços para detê-los.

Additional reporting by Darren Conway.

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide, external.

Uma lista de organizações do Reino Unido que podem ajudar está disponível aqui.