I love it when dumbass reporters write about drugs. I'll give it to vice, at least they try to be hip. They talk to more than one person, they try, but in reality they need to find a person who actually has been around the block, and seen both sides of the drug trade.
Not one chemist that works at a lab.
Also, they try to make it all fuckkng urgent sounding, "there was an urgent need to discover what the new substance was, it was killing people at record paces, he was racing against the clock"
Hey, I got a fucking idea, mass spec/nmr/ hplc it and look for the telltale fentanyl skeleton! Wrote a note the the dip-shit DEA agent or local task force and say "it's a fentanyl analog". Case closed.
It doesn't matter to the pigs if it's 4Fluoro fentanyl, alpha methyl fentanyl, ohmefentanyl or 3-methyl fentanyl. Let's be honest, the differences between these would not be noticeable to hardly anyone, let alone the doctors or first responders administering the naloxone.....
They act like they need to figure out what it is to save lives, but the trusts is they need to figure out what it is so they can arrest the people they catch. Point blank.
It's to put people in jail and seize assets.
So fuck you vice for furthering their lies to sell articles/get clicks.