Washington state drug epidemiology

What you will find on this 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.
Over the past few years, the most prominent drug categories—featuring frequent notable jumps in many counties and/or statewide—have been fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, and novel benzodiazepines.
More recently, fentanyl continues to increase and fentanyl analogues are less common. More and new forms of illicit benzodiazepines continue to appear in Washington.
Fentanyl seizures increased in less populated counties in Eastern and Western Washington. Jefferson, Grays Harbor, Lewis, Cowlitz, Chelan, Grant, and Yakima counties saw significant jumps in law enforcement seizures of fentanyl in the fourth quarter of 2020. Jefferson, Grays Harbor, Mason, and Whitman counties have seen further jumps in preliminary first quarter 2021 data.

Data source, utility, and limitations

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. While 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 that are described at the bottom of this page.

On this page, 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 present only notable increases, not overall trends.

Emerging drugs in the fourth quarter of 2020

Once again, most of the increases in the fourth quarter were in illicit benzodiazepines and fentanyl.

Emerging drugs in the first quarter of 2021

As we have described previously, the class of non-prescription benzodiazepines includes an ever-expanding list of drugs that are only slightly different in chemical structure from familiar drugs such as Xanax (alprazolam), diazepam (Valium), and clonazepam (Klonopin). This quarter saw two new drugs added to that list in Washington: meclonazepam and descloroetizolam. Although representing a small number of cases, the preliminary crime lab data for the first quarter of 2021 are consistent with results for the prior quarter, above, and illustrate that distribution of these substances is growing beyond more populous areas: had its first case of illicit benzodiazepines in 2020, and saw 2 in the first quarter of 2021. also had a single such case, its third ever. Grays Harbor County also had 5 cases test positive for legal benzodiazepines, for 6 total benzodiazepine cases (one case tested positive for both legal and illegal benzodiazepines) and 7 total cases testing positive for drugs in the umbrella depressant class.

Seven counties saw notable jumps in cases testing positive for fentanyl, although that includes 3 with a single case.

Emerging trends?

Three drug classes stand out over the last several quarters 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 growing threat of these substances in Washington state. Click on the Fentanyl series name in the legend to turn that series off and better see the other two. Note that decreases in the most recent quarter may be due to the incompleteness of the testing results, and may become quarter-over-quarter increases after updating. All three of these drug classes may be sold as themselves, or as imitations of other substances. While Washington sees plenty of "street Xanax", we rarely see fentanyls mixed with black tar heroin or benzodiazepines.

Changing mix of 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, and in 2020 the novel benzodiazepines were present in nearly one half of all benzodiazepine-positive crime lab cases in Washington.

Prior editions of this page:

Data notes

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). This means that an unusually low number of cases in the prior year no longer creates what looks like a substantial increase, which is particularly an issue with relatively rare drug categories and/or small counties.

As we describe elsewhere, there are many limitations of the data, including: county being an imperfect geographic unit to report the data; changes in law enforcement policy, practice and resources over time; and often substantial lags between when drugs were seized by law enforcement and when they were submitted to the lab and then further lags due to testing and reporting.

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 do not capture the initial rise of such a novel substance, but at best its peak and decline. Here we just focus on significant counts of new or rarely-before-seen substances.

In addition to the above issues with crime lab case counts, 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.

In sum, "quarter" does not mean when law enforcement seized the drug, and counts will likely change. All data presented here are preliminary.

New and emerging drugs in state crime lab evidence: Quarter 4 2020 and Quarter 1 2021