Major increase in nonfatal fentanyl exposure among U.S. children over the past decade, study finds

CBS News

08-03-2025

Cases of fentanyl poisoning in children across the U.S. has been steadily increasing for most of the past decade, according to a new study published Friday.
Researchers looked at over 3,000 incidents of nonfatal fentanyl exposure in children up to 19 years old that were reported to poison centers, and found a 1,194.2% increase between 2015 and 2023, according to the study published in the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
The exposures were categorized as either misuse or abuse, or as unintentional. During the studied period, the percentage of misuse or drug abuse cases increased from 26.1% to 39.2%, while there was a decrease in unintentional exposures, from 47.8% to 35.4%.
When the numbers were broken down into two age groups, teenagers 13 to 19 years of age were more likely to have been exposed to fentanyl than kids 12 and younger. There were 379 fentanyl exposures among children ages 12 and under reported to poison centers in 2023, compared to 514 among teens ages 13 to 19 that year, researchers found.
The majority of fentanyl exposure cases among teens, 65.7%, were characterized as intentional misuse or abuse, the study's authors found. The older group of children were also more likely to have been co-exposed with cannabis, cocaine, methamphetamine and alcohol, according to the data analyzed. Among children 12 and under, 81.7% were found to have been exposed to fentanyl unintentionally.
Overall, the percentage of misuse or abuse cases between 2015 and 2023 rose 50.2%, while 41% of all cases resulted in "major, life-threatening effect," the study said.
The study found that 76.9% of cases in children 12 and under involved exposure through ingestion, compared to 54.1% of cases in teenagers.
The researchers cited a 2024 study in the International Journal of Drug Policy that found that 49% of seized fentanyl in the U.S. in 2023 was in pill form, noting that there is a concerning trend in counterfeit pills containing fentanyl. Last week, Mexican authorities seized 275,000 fentanyl pills with a street value of $6.5 million from boxes of sliced cactus bound for Arizona.
Fake prescription pills containing fentanyl and other powerful opioids are contributing to high numbers of overdoses across the country, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. In 2022, the DEA found that about 6 in 10 fake fentanyl-laced prescription pill contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
There were 105,007 reported overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2023, according to numbers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That's down about 3% from 2022, when there were 107,941 overdose deaths, the agency said.
The CDC estimates that about 74,000 overdose deaths in 2023 were fentanyl-related.
Most fentanyl that enters the U.S. comes through Mexico, CBS News has previously reported, and nearly all the fentanyl that comes into the U.S. is made by two Mexican cartels using chemicals mostly purchased in China.