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Covid-19 helped pave the way for fentanyl’s ascent. Driven into boredom and isolation by the pandemic, many Americans turned to illegal drugs – and in 2020 and 2021, more people than ever were killed by fentanyl. (Court, Campbell and Lin, 12/13)

A stronger and more dangerous version of methamphetamine and fentanyl are helping drive America's homeless crisis, with users quickly slipping into debilitating addiction and mental illness that makes it impossible for them to function in society. (Lee, 12/13)

Expect a lot of debate over how California should respond to the state’s mounting fentanyl epidemic when state lawmakers return to Sacramento early next year. Bills dealing with the super-powerful synthetic opioid are already piling up, many of them focused on youth in the wake of a stunning analysis that found fentanyl was responsible for 1 in 5 deaths among 15- to 24-year-old Californians in 2021. (Hoeven, 12/9)

Glenda O. Hampton doesn’t need to look far to witness the devastation of the fentanyl epidemic in her neighborhood on Milwaukee’s north side. She has found men lying on the curb, barely conscious, their legs splaying into the street as cars whiz by. She can count at least three people in recent months who sought treatment at the storefront rehabilitation center she runs, then relapsed and died from using fentanyl. “I’ve seen a lot of terrible drugs,” said Ms. Hampton, 68, a tiny figure seated behind her crowded desk, as a group counseling session was underway down the hall. “This is the worst.” (Bosman, 12/12)

During the past seven years, as soaring quantities of fentanyl flooded into the United States, strategic blunders and cascading mistakes by successive U.S. administrations allowed the most lethal drug crisis in American history to become significantly worse, a Washington Post investigation has found. (Miroff, Higham, Rich, Georges and O'Connor, 12/12)

Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller developed nearly 60 years ago, is at the center of the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. More people have died of synthetic-opioid overdoses than the number of U.S. military personnel killed during the Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined. Fentanyl is now the leading cause of death for Americans ages 18 to 49. (Vitkovskaya and Kan, 12/12)

Fentanyl’s catastrophic surge came after the Drug Enforcement Administration cracked down on the excesses of the U.S. opioid industry. Millions of Americans who had become addicted to prescription pain pills suddenly found them difficult or impossible to get. (Kan, Miroff, Higham, Rich and Remmel, 12/12)

The meth was expensive. The federal agents were running out of money. They had been buying loads of drugs in undercover operations, trying to trace the pipeline of methamphetamine and fentanyl into this sleepy city of retirees, out-of-town hikers and Mormon churches. (Sieff, 12/13)

The small American surveillance plane took off from a Mexican navy base in Baja California and flew high across the Sea of Cortez. Charting a course for the Sierra Madre mountains — cartel territory — the aircraft did not appear on any flight trackers or public logs. An orb-shaped device about the size of a beach ball was mounted on the fuselage, bristling with sensors and antennas. U.S. agents called it “the sniffer.” (Sheridan and Miroff, 12/12)

CVS and Walgreens have agreed to pay state and local governments a combined total of more than $10 billion to settle lawsuits over the toll of opioids and now want to know by Dec. 31 whether states are accepting the deals. States announced final details Monday of settlements that the two largest pharmacy chains in the U.S. offered last month. (Mulvihill, 12/12)