ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2024
A scoping review of law enforcement drug seizures and overdose mortality in the United States.
Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- Proportion of fentanyl reports in illicit drug seizures and nonfatal overdose emergency department visits in the United States, 2021-2024.The International journal on drug policy · 2026Article
- "I Know So Many Women That Have the Same Story as Mine": Exploring How the Increase of Benzodiazepines in the Unregulated Drug Supply Shapes Experiences of Gender-Based Violence Among Women and Gender Minorities in Vancouver, BC.Contemporary drug problems · 2026Article
- Customizing and fine-tuning opioid overdose machine learning models for community-specific dashboards.Journal of big data · 2026Article
- Anti-Latine bias and drug-induced homicide law support: Evidence from a nationally diverse, randomized survey experiment in the United States.The International journal on drug policy · 2026Article
- Cannabis legalization and law enforcement drug seizures: a state-level analysis of cannabis policy effects on cannabis seizures in the United States, 2010-2023.The International journal on drug policy · 2026Article
- Illicit drug supply, naloxone availability, and overdose mortality in the fentanyl era: a systematic review.Health affairs scholar · 2026Review
- The association between benzodiazepine proliferation in the unregulated drug supply and experiences of violence: A gender-based analysis.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2026Article
- Pharmacotherapy and overdose risk following new opioid use disorder diagnosis among Medicaid beneficiaries.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2026Article
- Trends in nonmedical ketamine use, poisonings, related deaths, pharmaceutical diversions, and law enforcement seizures: results from annual population-based repeated cross-sectional studies.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2025Article
- Harm reduction, treatment, and prevention-essential pillars to Canada's response to the drug poisoning crisis.Canadian journal of public health = Revue canadienne de sante publique · 2025Article
- Generating Timely Estimates of Overdose Deaths for the US Using Urine Drug Test Data.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Missed opportunities: Public health messaging in media coverage of drug seizures.Public health in practice (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- The Police Opioid Seizure Temporal Risk (POSTeR) model of increased exposure to fatal overdose.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- National and regional trends in fentanyl seizures in the United States, 2017-2023.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- An analysis of the size of law enforcement seizures of illicit fentanyl in the United States, 2018-2023.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Law enforcement fentanyl seizures and overdose mortality in US counties, 2013-2020.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2024Article
- Using policy codesign to achieve multi-sector alignment in adolescent behavioral health: a study protocol.Implementation science communications · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLeveraging law enforcement drug seizure data to better respond to the overdose crisis requires an understanding of available evidence and knowledge gaps regarding relationships between drug seizures and overdose mortality.
objectiveThis scoping review summarized peer-reviewed literature on associations between law enforcement drug seizures and drug-related mortality in the United States (US) in the era of illicitly-manufactured fentanyl, comparing study data sources, measures, methodologies, settings, and findings.
methodsWe identified 388 non-duplicate records from three online databases searched on May 23, 2023. After title/abstract and full-text screening by two independent reviewers, 14 studies met the criteria for inclusion. The included studies tested the association between a measure related to law enforcement drug seizures and an overdose mortality outcome in the US and were published in English, in peer-reviewed journals, during or after 2013.
resultsFour of 14 studies (29%) included data from the entire US, while the remaining studies focused on an individual state/city/county or a group of states/cities/counties. Synthetic opioid/fentanyl seizures represented the most frequently examined drug seizure category, and overdose deaths overall (involving any drugs) represented the most frequently examined outcome. Most studies used counts/rates of drug seizures, with fewer studies examining dosage/weight, drug combinations, the proportion of drug seizures involving a specific drug, or spatiotemporal distribution. The majority (86%) of studies reported at least one statistically significant positive association between a law enforcement drug seizure measure and an overdose mortality outcome, most consistently for fentanyl-related seizures. Results were relatively less consistent for seizures involving stimulants and other drugs.
conclusionsStudies in this review provided consistent evidence that fentanyl-related seizure measures are positively associated with overdose mortality outcomes, despite the limitations inherent in drug seizure data, even in the absence of available information regarding seizure weight or dosage.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.