ArticleThe Lancet. Public health2025
The public health risks of counterfeit pills.
Article in The Lancet. Public health, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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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
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Charting the decline of the fourth wave: US overdose deaths by race, ethnicity and substance involvement.Addiction (Abingdon, England) · 2026Article
- Novel 2-Benzylbenzimidazole Opioids: Emerging Drugs of Abuse and Pharmacological Considerations with Nitazene Analogs.Current pain and headache reports · 2026Review
- Accuracy of Patient-Reported Exposure to New Psychoactive Substances and Other Illicit Drugs in Australian Emergency Departments: Findings From the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia.Drug and alcohol review · 2026Article
- Monitoring of new psychoactive substances in France: update of addictovigilance data.European journal of public health · 2026Article
- Emergence of synthetic drugs in South America: insights from Brazil, Chile, and Colombia.Harm reduction journal · 2026Review
- Charting the Decline of the Fourth Wave: US Overdose Deaths by Race, Ethnicity, and Substance Involvement.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Polydrug overdose mortality caused by synthetic opioids and stimulants: current sex- and age-specific trajectories in United States national data for 2018-2024.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
- "Extremely cheap and extremely potent": Fentanyl Knowledge and Risk Practices AmongYoung People in Oregon Who Have Used Non-Prescription Pills.Research square · 2026Article
- Self-Reported Adverse Effects Associated With New Psychoactive Substance Use in a Sample of Adults From 20 US Cities.Drug and alcohol review · 2026Article
- Review
- High variation in purity of consumer-level illicit fentanyl samples in Los Angeles, September 2023-April 2025.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- The emergence of nitazenes: a new chapter in the synthetic opioid crisis.Archives of toxicology · 2025Review
- "I don't know how you can overdose smoking them:" Perceptions of overdose risks among persons who use illicit fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- The Police Opioid Seizure Temporal Risk (POSTeR) model of increased exposure to fatal overdose.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- Adolescent Fentanyl Use: Toxicological Risks, Epidemiological Trends, and Public Health Strategies.Cureus · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Synthetic illicit drugs, such as nitazenes and fentanyls, are becoming commonplace in countries around the world, including in Europe, Australia, and Latin America, which raises concern for overdose crises like those seen in North America. An important dimension of the risk represented by synthetic drugs is the fact that they are increasingly packaged in counterfeit pill form. These pills-often indistinguishable from authentic pharmaceuticals-have substantially widened the scope of populations susceptible to synthetic drug overdose in North America (eg, among adolescents experimenting with pills or tourists from the USA seeking psychoactive medications from pharmacies in Mexico). The non-medical use of diverted prescription medications is relatively more common, and less stigmatised, than the use of powder drugs. Many consumers of counterfeit pills are unaware that they contain synthetic illicit drugs, believe them to be authentic pharmaceuticals, and would be unlikely to consume those drugs knowingly or if in powder form. Given these issues, we recommend the expansion of educational and awareness campaigns, pill testing programmes to help consumers shift demand to safer products, increased monitoring in routine clinical scenarios and overdose death toxicology, and expanding medically managed safer alternatives to counterfeit pill use.
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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.