Health
Inside a One-Man Workshop for Ultrapotent Drugs
Last fall, a man who calls himself Chemical Analyst allowed the two of us – New York Times reporters writing about the illegal drug trade – to watch on a secure video call as he packaged ultrapotent synthetic drugs for distribution.
These chemicals now flood the modern drug market. Many have psychoactive effects that are much more intense than those of traditional drugs. One newly emerging drug, cychlorphine, can be 250 to 500 times as strong as heroin and 10 times as strong as fentanyl.
Chemical Analyst is a small-time, independent dealer who supplies powerful drugs without a cartel or gang for support. From an apartment in the northeastern United States, he places online orders for drugs made in a lab in China, repackages them and sells them domestically.
Operations like this represent the frontier of a drug market that is increasingly democratized. Compounds can be made in labs all over the world, ordered online and shipped anywhere. And because these drugs are often entirely new chemical compounds, they are difficult for law enforcement officials to detect.
We interviewed Chemical Analyst over the course of a year, after meeting him through others who use and sell these new, potent drugs.
He allowed The Times to observe his operation on the condition that his identity would remain confidential. He is a felon on probation who fears further prosecution. He is also a functional addict who regularly buys, sells and ingests some of the most potent drugs in the world.
The Times decided to describe parts of his process because they are vital to understanding both the origins of ultrapotent drugs and the difficulties faced by law enforcement in tracking and interdicting these new compounds.
In 2022 and 2023, Chemical Analyst was a street dealer of fentanyl and crack. His setup at an apartment “is so much safer,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about running if a cop rolls up through the alley,” he added. As his own use gravitated to more potent drugs, he developed the connections and expertise to sell them, too.
His latest drugs arrived in mid-October from China in a silver Mylar bag. He paid $4,370 in cryptocurrency for the shipment, which contained several powerful and potentially deadly synthetic compounds.
One bag held a 100-gram slab of MD-PiHP. The drug is a cathinone, a class of stimulants often sold as “bath salts” that can induce psychosis. In markets where these stimulants are particularly popular, like Miami, they are increasingly showing up in toxicology reports from people who suffer fatal overdoses.
On the secure video call, Chemical Analyst measured 100-milligram crystals of the drug into small bags. He sprayed the bags with bleach to remove his DNA, applied labels from an untraceable thermal printer and wore textured latex gloves to keep the bags clean of fingerprints. Because Chemical Analyst is a convicted felon, his prints are already in state databases.
He moved the drugs into smaller baggies and weighed them. He then sealed them into packages for shipment. He wrote a false return address so he could not be traced and drove far from his residence to drop them in the mail.
Chemical Analyst said that people might assume he sold on the “darknet,” a restricted network that requires special software to access. But he has a website on the regular internet, and he takes steps to conceal his whereabouts and identity. He accepts cryptocurrency payments, but he avoids Bitcoin because he worries that it might be trackable.
Drugs like this are hard to police in part because their composition changes all the time. The molecular structure of MD-PiHP is nearly identical to that of MDPV, a potent cathinone that appeared in 2010 and can cause extreme psychosis and death.
Chemical Analyst spoke in detail about the chemistry of these novel drugs. He offered to draw MD-PiHP to show important facets of its structure; shortly after the video call, he texted his illustration.
Chemical Analyst first spotted an online listing for the drug in early 2025. He is familiar enough with drug molecules that the structure alone made him want to try it. He was surprised by its potency and effects. “This is not something humans should be getting high on,” he said, adding an expletive.
He worried that the drug’s potency could produce a high so intense that it “could easily cause anhedonia,” an inability to experience joy when sober. He said that, unlike other suppliers, he did not adulterate his products, so they were predictable and therefore safer. “It’s how I pay the bills,” he said.
His operation also shows just how inexpensive illicit drugs have become in the age of synthetics. In his recent shipment from China, he ordered half a dozen different substances, paying between $6 and $28 for a pure gram, depending on the drug. A standard dose is 50 to 100 milligrams, meaning that the cost of getting high is often less than $1.
He keeps a collection of novel drug samples, as well as a separate stash for his own consumption.
Chemical Analyst plays another important role in the emergence of ultrapotent synthetic drugs. He is part of a small but influential circle of armchair chemists and theorists who discuss ideas for new drugs and scour medical literature for forgotten molecules.
He said that some members of these groups interacted with Chinese manufacturers to discuss new drug ideas. “They get ideas from us,” he said. “We have direct contact with them.”
A source at a Chinese drug manufacturer confirmed to The Times that new drug ideas were introduced first to small dealers and users like Chemical Analyst to test their popularity. If a drug catches on, it might be introduced to the mass market, which continues to rapidly transform.
Marriage linked to lower cancer risk, study finds
Dr. Namrata Vijayvergia discusses a new study indicating a lower cancer risk for married adults due to social support and healthier lifestyles and the correlation between gardening and cognitive health.
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While U.S. cancer deaths have been falling over the past couple of decades, certain parts of the country are seeing less improvement in those numbers.
New research published in the British Journal of Cancer assessed the differences in cancer mortality improvements across the country.
Researchers at Mississippi State’s Social Science Research Center, along with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, analyzed death certificates between 1981 and 2019 across nearly 3,000 U.S. counties.
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The data was drawn from Wide-Ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research (WONDER), which is operated by the CDC. More than 21.3 million cancer deaths were included in the records.
Overall, U.S. cancer mortality has declined by about 32% between 1991 and 2019, but not all areas experienced that level of improvement.
While U.S. cancer deaths have been falling over the past couple of decades, certain parts of the country are seeing less improvement. (iStock)
The highest rates of mortality decline and the biggest drop in excess deaths were seen in urban, coastal and higher-income counties, according to the study. Rural and lower-income counties had smaller declines in mortality.
“In a complex nation such as the U.S., we should not be too surprised that there are large differences in health outcomes shaped by the diversity and variety of local regions and groups,” Arthur G. Cosby, the study’s lead author, told Fox News Digital. He is a Giles Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Mississippi State.
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“Cancer improvement over the last few decades certainly aligns with this perspective,” he said.
The gap appeared to widen over time, researchers noted. By 2019, the top 10% highest-income counties had a roughly seven times greater mortality improvement than the lowest-income counties.
The highest rates of mortality decline and the biggest drop in excess deaths were seen in urban, coastal and higher-income counties, according to the study. (iStock)
The large urban centers along both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts consistently had among the highest rates of cancer improvement, according to Cosby. Rural and smaller cities in the interior of the U.S. often had much lower rates.
“The magnitude of the mortality differences between coastal and inland regions, [and] the large differences between places with different income levels and rural/urban places, were larger than I anticipated,” Cosby said.
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“The link between improving health and increasing disparities is poorly understood. I am pursuing that question now,” he added.
The researchers pointed to several factors that could contribute to the declines in cancer mortality. These included a decline in tobacco use and improved cancer screenings and treatments.
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“Wealthy, metropolitan New York City has been aggressive in instituting tobacco control measures, and the results show,” Cosby noted. “Manhattan had a lung cancer rate of 49 per 100,000 in 1991. By 2019, it cut its rate to 19.6 — a 60% reduction.”
Rural and smaller cities in the interior of the U.S. often had much lower mortality rates. (iStock)
Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News senior medical analyst, agreed that more aggressive preventive measures targeting smoking and alcohol use likely played a role in the sharper mortality decline in urban, affluent areas.
“More aggressive screening campaigns, including at major medical centers, can diagnose pre-cancers or cancers earlier,” Siegel, who was not involved in the study, told Fox News Digital.
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A focus on improved lifestyle habits and less exposure to environmental toxins could also play a role, he added.
The study had some limitations, as noted by the authors.
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Because the research was conducted at the county level, the results may not apply at the individual level.
Also, unmeasured factors such as lifestyle behaviors and access to healthcare could impact mortality.
The highest rates of mortality decline and the biggest drop in excess deaths were seen in urban, coastal and higher-income counties, according to the study. (iStock)
“There are many limitations associated with the use of death certificates in research, such as accuracy of cause of death, possible multiple causes and changes in medical explanation for death over time,” Cosby told Fox News Digital.
Based on the findings, the researchers are calling for more studies that take into account the significant variations that exist across the country.
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“The varying speed of adoption of life-saving interventions between geographic places may produce increasing disparities,” Cosby said. “It is possible to have a situation where nearly all places are improving their cancer mortality, but at much different rates.”
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Weight management is often treated as a “middle-age” problem, but new research suggests that the pounds you pack on in your 20s may be the most dangerous of your life.
A massive study of more than 620,000 individuals found that the damage from early weight gain is disproportionately high and surprisingly permanent. According to the findings, the younger someone is when obesity sets in, the higher the risk of early mortality.
The study, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, analyzed data from the Obesity and Disease Development Sweden project.
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“The most consistent finding is that weight gain at a younger age is linked to a higher risk of premature death later in life, compared with people who gain less weight,” Tanja Stocks, a professor at Lund University and one of the researchers behind the study, said in a press release.
New research suggests that the pounds you pack on in your 20s may be the most dangerous of your life. (iStock)
Developing obesity between the ages of 17 and 29 was linked to a 70% higher risk of early death compared to weight gain later in life.
Weight gain later in adulthood, between ages 30 and 60, was also linked to higher death rates, but the connections were generally weaker.
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“One possible explanation for why people with early obesity onset are at greater risk is their longer period exposed to the biological effects of excess weight,” Huyen Le, a doctoral student at Lund University and first author of the study, said in the release.
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When weight gain happens in the 20s, the blood vessels, liver and metabolic systems endure obesity-related strain for decades longer than someone who gains the same weight in their 50s, experts say.
Weight gain later in adulthood, between ages 30 and 60, was also linked to higher death rates, but the connections were generally weaker. (iStock)
The study identified type 2 diabetes as the leading cause of death associated with early-onset obesity. Other significant risks included high-blood pressure, liver cancer in men and uterine cancer in women.
To reach these conclusions, researchers tracked participants’ weight paths across adulthood over more than 50 years, focusing on three specific windows: ages 17 to 29, 30 to 44, and 45 to 60.
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Using a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher to define obesity, the team compared weight data against Sweden’s national death registry.
After adjusting for a variety of factors, including smoking habits and marital status, the trend showed that becoming obese later in life still carried risks, but the danger compounded the longer people stayed obese.
While type 2 diabetes is the leading risk, early-onset obesity is also tied to higher rates of high-blood pressure and specific cancers. (iStock)
While these findings highlight the “importance of early and sustained obesity prevention strategies,” the researchers noted that other factors come into play, and that increases in risk within a population can be difficult to interpret.
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“We shouldn’t get too hung up on exact risk figures,” Stocks said.
“They are rarely entirely accurate, as they are influenced, for example, by the factors taken into account in the study and the accuracy with which both risk factors and outcomes have been measured.”
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Because the study was conducted in Sweden, more research is needed to understand the effect of early-onset obesity in other populations, the team noted.
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