Using our interactive charts

Drug trends across Washington: Crime lab data

Crime lab cases, reflecting drugs seized by state and local law enforcement and by federal and other multi-county agencies throughout the state and sent to the state crime lab for testing as potential evidence, are presented as a partial indicator of the supply of drugs. See below for details on the data. Three categories of drugs are presented:

• Major drugs includes the most common categories of drugs that have been available for many years.
• Opioids includes heroin, drugs legitimately used for pain and/or opioid use disorder treatment, and a class of synthetic opioids, fentanyl and its analogues, some of which are approved for medical use. See the opioid cases page for more information on opioid cases in the state. The "Other opioids" series includes all opioids except heroin.
• New and emerging psychoactives includes mostly synthetic drugs developed for their cannabis-like, hallucinogenic, and/or stimulating properties. This represents an ever-changing set of drugs, many of which are initially or presently legal because they have not yet been controlled or made illegal by the DEA.

Counts of cases over time

As a share of all drug cases

While the above charts looked at counts of drug cases, below we focus on what proportion of all unique cases involved the same drugs of interest. (A given case may involve multiple drug findings and thus multiple "drug cases" across drug categories, so the percentages add to more than 100%.) This helps us understand how prominent the drug has been in law enforcement case loads, which of course reflects not only prominence among drug users but also prominence among law enforcement and among distributors and dealers.

Again, to highlight less common drugs and better see their growth, turn off the most common drug(s) in a chart by clicking on the drug name(s) in the legend.

Data details

These data represent individual submissions to the state crime lab that test positive for a given substance or drug category. The Washington State v. Blake decision vastly changed the levels of these counts beginning in 2021. In July 2023, a new bill in response to Blake (ESB5536) changed possession laws to a more serious gross misdemeanor. These counts represent law enforcement seizures of various sizes and count cases submitted to the crime lab in which a given drug was found, not drug amounts (weights, doses, tablets, etc.). With the Blake decision, far fewer drug cases are being prosecuted, thus far fewer submissions to the state crime lab. To compare before and after Blake, we suggest focusing on the share of cases testing positive for a given drug class. See our new and emerging drugs in crime lab evidence page for more on the effects of the Blake decision.