Illegally Made Fentanyl
- Starting with the 2022 NSDUH, questions were added to the emerging issues section of the questionnaire to assess the use of illegally made fentanyl (IMF). Because the questions about IMF came after the questions assessing substance use disorder and substance use treatment, it is not possible to assess SUDs or substance use treatment that arose solely from the use of IMF.
- Because data on IMF were not available in prior NSDUH years, some summary drug measures, such as illicit drug use and opioid misuse, did not include IMF in prior years. To enable comparisons with 2021, these measures also did not include IMF in 2022. However, new measures were produced in 2022 that included the use of IMF. These new measures included the use and misuse of fentanyl (i.e., pharmaceutical fentanyl or IMF) and the use and misuse of opioids including IMF.
- See section 4.3.4, 4.3.7, and 4.3.8 of the 2022 NSDUH Methodological Summary and Definitions for details on data collection and management for these measures as well as a discussion of which summary measures of opioids include IMF and which do not.
- It should be noted that because people who used IMF may have been unaware that they used it, caution must be taken in interpreting estimates of IMF use; these estimates are most likely an underestimate of true IMF use.