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Drug Checking Data

The NYC Health Department operates a drug checking program in partnership with community-based organizations where people can bring drug samples for analysis and receive results and tailored harm reduction education in real time.

Drug checking is a harm reduction strategy that provides people who use drugs with information about what is in their drugs.

To find out what is in a drug sample:

  • The Health Department tests samples on-site using quick immunoassay test strips to detect specific substances and using advanced instrumentation (such as Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy or FTIR) to get a more detailed analysis.
  • After on-site testing, the sample may be sent to a secondary lab for further testing. The secondary lab offers more sophisticated types of analysis, and this webpage contains information only from the secondary laboratory. Due to a variety of factors, not all samples received by the drug checking program may be sent for secondary laboratory testing.

All data below are from drug samples received by the Health Department’s drug checking program. While samples submitted to the drug checking program are not representative of all drugs in NYC, these data offer valuable insights into the trends and emerging substances in the unregulated drug supply.

The program also offers harm reduction education and helps connect people to other support services. For more information about how to access this service (including how to submit samples for testing), visit one of our locations.

Total Samples Analyzed

The total number of samples received and analyzed by the drug checking program since its launch in November 2021 is reported below.


The number of drug samples received by the NYC Health Department’s drug checking program changes over time. The chart below shows how many samples the drug checking program received in each month of its operation.

Total Number of Samples Received for Drug Checking per Month

Fentanyl Positivity

Upon receiving a sample, the Health Department collects information about what the drug was sold as. We then count how many samples tested by the secondary laboratory in each drug category contained fentanyl. The table below focuses on common categories of sale. The Health Department focuses on fentanyl as it is the most common opioid observed in drug overdose deaths. The presence of fentanyl in a non-opioid category of sale may be due to intentional or unintentional contamination during the production, consumption, or checking phase. Whenever possible, drugs should be checked before they are consumed.

Fentanyl Positivity by Select Categories of Sale

Prevalence of Specific Substances in Opioid Samples

The NYC Health Department actively monitors notable substance trends in samples submitted for drug checking.

Substances of interest are recent changes in the illicit drug supply that have been linked to overdoses and other dangerous health outcomes. The chart below shows what proportion of opioid samples received by the drug checking program contained substances of interest. Fentanyl, xylazine, and medetomidine have become increasingly common and raise the risk and complexity of overdoses in the illicit drug supply.


About the Data

Data are updated the first week of each month.

In addition, the data on this page are delayed one month to account for the time needed to carry out data quality checks and cleaning procedures.

All data on this dashboard are provisional, which means that they are not finalized and are subject to change. These provisional data are being released to provide more timely information on the unregulated drug environment of NYC.

Contact Us

To submit a sample for drug checking, visit location and availability of drug checking services in NYC.

If you have questions about the drug checking program or sample submission, email drugchecking@health.nyc.gov.

Additional Resources

More Information