SHREVEPORT, La. - The North Louisiana Criminalistics Laboratory is warning the public after recent testing found that nearly one in three pharmaceutical-style tablets examined by the lab were counterfeit.
According to the crime lab, analysts examined 3,394 pharmaceutical tablets bearing legitimate drug imprints intended to identify the medication. Of those, 1,047 tablets were determined to be counterfeit, representing a counterfeit rate of 30.8%.
Lab officials said fentanyl and fentanyl analogs were the most commonly identified substances found in the counterfeit pills. Designer benzodiazepines, including bromazolam and phenazolam, were the second most common. Combined, those two drug classes accounted for approximately 80% of the counterfeit pills analyzed.
The remaining counterfeit tablets contained stimulants, other mismatched substances, and emerging novel opioids such as nitazenes and orphines.
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