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Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) on ASTM standards and related intellectual property is prohibited. Violations will result in suspension of access.
By Kathy Hunt
Aug 29, 2025
For over a quarter of a century, the world has faced an opioid epidemic, one that many trace to the 1990s and the introduction of the semi-synthetic opioid oxycodone for pain management. The epidemic gained traction in 2010 with the growing heroin market and entered another phase in 2013 with the rising popularity of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. As cited by the U.S.’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), U.S. law-enforcement officials seized 115,562,603 pills containing fentanyl in 2023. This number was 2,300 times greater than the amount confiscated in 2017. Prescribed to treat chronic or post-operative pain, fentanyl is roughly 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times more powerful than the natural opioid morphine. Two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a potentially lethal dose. Couple its potency with its ease of production and distribution, along with the frequency of it being mixed with other illicit substances including heroin and methamphetamines, and the risk of overdose increases.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has reported that in 2023, over 107,000 people lost their lives to a drug overdose in the U.S. Almost 70 percent of those deaths were due to opioids such as fentanyl. Adults weren’t the only casualties. A May 2023 report in JAMA Pediatrics indicated that in 1999, five percent of all fatal pediatric opioid poisonings in the U.S. were attributed to fentanyl. By 2021, that amount had skyrocketed to 94 percent. Meanwhile, The New England Journal of Medicine disclosed that during the period from 2013 to 2023 in the U.S., roughly 1,500 children under the age of six were poisoned by fentanyl.
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Dr. Nikoleta Kolovos, pediatric intensivist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, MO, says that reported cases of fentanyl exposure in children have increased by a factor of 10 in the last decade. “None of these cases were intentional,” says Kolovos, who is also a professor of pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.
“Young children, most commonly toddler age and under, will inadvertently find a fentanyl patch or a pill laced with fentanyl on the floor and, developmentally, they will put it in their mouths,” says Kolovos. “Unfortunately, unless this is discovered quickly, the result can be fatal.”
Similar to adults who are exposed to fentanyl, children experience reduced respiratory function, low blood oxygen levels, low blood pressure, and decreased heart rate. If found in time and naloxone (the opioid antagonist and overdose-reversal medication known as Narcan) is administered, the child will require hospitalization and an intravenous infusion of Narcan. Even then, young patients may suffer serious long-term effects such as pediatric opioid use-associated neurotoxicity with cerebellar edema (POUNCE) syndrome, and the long-term effects of cardiac arrest if they are successfully resuscitated, Kolovos says.
Securing medications so that children don’t have access is one way to prevent opioid exposure. Another is to reduce, if not completely remove, the likelihood that children and adults will come into contact with illicit drugs and counterfeit pharmaceuticals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration defines the latter as “fake or falsified medicines [that] may be harmful to your health because, while being passed off as authentic, may contain the wrong ingredients, contain too much, too little, or no active ingredient at all or contain other harmful ingredients.” According to NIDA, counterfeit pharmaceuticals are often acquired online and through social media for pain management, anxiety, and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The pills resemble the legitimate medication but may contain deadly additives such as fentanyl. The reasoning behind adding fentanyl to counterfeit drugs is that this synthetic opioid is inexpensive and easy to manufacture, yielding a greater profit for dealers.
Working to improve drug testing and decrease the presence of illegal or counterfeit drugs are two of the many objectives of ASTM International’s committee on forensic sciences (E30). Earlier this year, the committee divided its subcommittee on criminalistics (E30.01) into several smaller, discipline-specific groups. By doing this, the committee expanded the number of its forensic sciences subcommittees from four to eight and created the subcommittee on seized drugs (E30.14).
“The criminalistics subcommittee had close to 80 different standards and work items, and it had grown to the point where it became logistically unmanageable,” says Laura Hernandez, committee vice-chair and director of Verity Labs. “Not everybody who’s interested in a drug standard will be interested in listening to or reading about what’s going on in a fire discipline or any of the other topics in the subcommittee on criminalistics. The new subcommittees align better with what people are doing and what they’re looking for, and they should have improved engagement.”
The subcommittee on seized drugs currently has five published standards. Among them is the standard practice for identification of seized drugs (E2329). Considered one of the most crucial standards for the analysis of illegal drugs, it is recommended by such organizations as the Scientific Working Group for the Analysis of Seized Drugs (SWGDRUG), which develops internationally-accepted minimum standards and points out best practices for drug testing. The standard describes the minimum criteria and analytical workflow for the qualitative examination of seized drugs. It also explains how to select the analytical method used for determining and reporting drug identities. Jurisdictional requirements may influence which techniques are employed by a lab.
The subcommittee on seized drugs has proposed six new standards, including the test method for the analysis of seized drugs using gas-chromatography/mass spectrometry or GC-MS (WK93504). Mass-based instrumentation differs from off-the-shelf, optical instrumentation, such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy, in that it possesses a higher sensitivity to fentanyl mixtures.
The subcommittee has also drafted a work item for a standard guide for the assessment of FTIR-spectroscopy data during the qualitative analysis of seized drugs (WK75231).
The GC-MS test method is predicated on the DEA’s Global Uniform Analysis and Reporting of Drug-Related Substances (GUARDS). The GUARDS method was developed to address the analytical challenges present in today’s illegal drug market and the increasing emergence of synthetic drugs. It has been adopted by other federal forensic labs, says committee chair Agnes Winokur.
She adds that E30 has partnered with the DEA to bring a standardized, consensus-based method to the forensic community, one that analyzes drug samples. “The DEA has shared method parameters, method optimization tips, and relative retention data to assist with this process,” she says.
Another work item from the subcommittee is the new test method for the analysis of fentanyl and related substances using gas-chromatography-infrared spectroscopy or GC-IR (WK93971). The GC-IR test method addresses structurally similar compounds that have been challenging to identify when tested with traditional techniques. Most impounded drug samples are polydrug, meaning they contain combined psychoactive substances that can complicate testing.
“Often, the mixture of substances is comprised of similar, structurally-related drugs, and GC-MS methods may not be sufficient to identify specific substances or isomers,” Winokur says. “Providing a standardized method on GC-IR gives forensic labs an alternate method to incorporate into their analytical technique to assist in accurately identifying the substance.”
In recent years, GC-IR, which complements GC-MS, has increasingly been used in drug analysis. However, at present, no standards on how to conduct tests with GC-IR and GC-MS exist.
Quality control is important in any field. This is especially the case in forensic sciences, where accurate tests results and evidence integrity are essential for use in court proceedings.
“How do we make sure that the science going into the courtroom is actually valid and how do we make sure that it’s accurate and reliable?” Hernandez asks.
She points out that forensic labs specializing in seized-drug testing may be operated by a county, state, region, private entity, or government agencies, such as the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education (CFSRE), which is the DEA’s Schedule I drug facility. The labs also vary in size, from a few people to hundreds, and in capabilities and methodologies.
The new practice for intra-laboratory blind quality-control programs specific to seized-drugs analysis (WK93533) is designed to provide continual assessment of the performance of forensic laboratories conducting the analysis and identification of confiscated drugs. It accomplishes this through a blind quality assessment that tests all the operational and analytical processes of a lab.
Committee E30 has partnered with the DEA to bring a standardized, consensus-based method to the forensic community.
“Most forensic laboratories have quality-control initiatives such as competency testing, proficiency testing, and corrective and preventive actions, but very few have started to explore how to initiate a blind quality assessment that tests the entire operational and analytical processes of the forensic laboratory,” Winokur says. “A blind quality program that uses a real case-work workflow approach gives the forensic laboratory the opportunity to identify areas for self-improvement that may not be apparent through other quality-control initiatives, such as cognitive bias.”
By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of its methods, a lab can change or update the methods used as needed. Presently, there are no minimum requirements for establishing and implementing seized-drug, blind quality-control programs.
In December 2023, President Joe Biden signed the Testing, Rapid Analysis, and Narcotic Quality (TRANQ) Research Act into law. Introduced by Senator Peter Welch of Vermont, the law addresses the nationwide rise in street drugs, including the animal tranquilizer xylazine, or “tranq,” which is frequently mixed with fentanyl. The law emphasizes the need for a methodology for novel synthetic opioids and directs the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to establish partnerships and develop new tests for rapid detection.
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Winokur notes that this year, E30 has increased its partnerships with agencies such as NIST and the DEA and organizations such as the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC). By working together and standardizing test methods for confiscated-drug samples, there will be more consistent data collection, which will, in turn, impact law enforcement and public health responses to emerging drug threats.
“ASTM is doing its part in support of public safety by partnering with other organizations and agencies to develop relevant standardized methodologies, as we see with these work items,” Winokur says.
Moreover, the committee is always interested in increasing stakeholder involvement. Among the current participants in E30 are representatives from human factors, laboratories, government agencies, and the legal community.
“A lot of very different points of view are showing up and working together,” Hernandez says. “We need to make sure that all are being represented within our standards. This will ensure that we have robust standards in place.”
While the subcommittee on seized drugs does a great deal of critical work around fentanyl and other illegal drugs, another new forensic sciences subcommittee also shows promise in aiding the fight against the opioid epidemic. The subcommittee on AI and machine learning (ML) for forensic science (E30.16) aims to shape the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in forensic sciences. By utilizing these tools, forensic scientists may witness improved evidence and operational management, analytic processes, and results reporting.
Among the benefits of adding machine learning and AI to forensics, Max M. Houck of the Global Forensic and Justice Center of Florida International University cites, in an October 2024, International Symposium of Human Identification post, the possibility of enhancing human performance through the management of large data sets, detection of patterns, and characterization of evidence. The two tools would offer increased efficiency and accuracy as well as a quicker turnaround on test results.
The forensic sciences committee invites experts in the field of AI to participate in subcommittee E30.16’s interdisciplinary forums. Collaborative in nature, the forums address such topics as terminology, data interoperability, workflow protocols, training, and ethical considerations such as bias in data.
For information about becoming involved with the subcommittees on seized drugs, AI and machine learning, and any other forensic science disciplines, contact staff manager Kevin Shanahan at kshanahan@astm.org. ●
September / October 2025
