Governments embrace fentanyl test strips in opioid battle

A Virginia county on Sept. 1 began distributing fentanyl test strips to people leaving jail. The preventive effort to help people detect the powerful opioid, which is often mixed with other drugs, was launched in the wake of rising overdose numbers.

Officials in Arlington County, just south of Washington, announced the change on Aug. 31, saying in a news release that departing inmates “who suffer from opioid use disorder” would receive the strips in an “emergency release bag” that also contains a box of overdose-reversing naloxone nasal spray.

Other local governments around the country have also begun distributing the strips, or allowing people to have them, although the tests are restricted in some places by state drug laws.