Earlier this year, Naida Rutherford, the coroner in Richland County, South Carolina, was helping investigate what appeared to be a mysterious overdose. The case had many of the hallmarks of a typical fentanyl death. [NPR-WBEZ Chicago]

"Every sort of physical manifestation, like the foam coming from the mouth and nose, as if they had an overdose," Rutherford said. "Their blood tested negative for any substance, which was very odd."

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Her team was stumped, so Rutherford expanded the testing, looking for new compounds. "That's where we found the cychlorphine," she told NPR, referring to one of the incredibly potent synthetic opioids spreading fast in the U.S. street drug supply.

"This is the first time we've seen it in South Carolina, which is very scary because none of us knew to test for it."

Experts say the U.S. addiction crisis is evolving fast, in ways that appear both hopeful and incredibly dangerous. The peril comes from a street drug supply that chemists now describe as a "synthetic soup."

Where once most drug users mostly consumed plant-based substances such as cocaine and heroin, drug gangs and cartels have shifted to producing and selling synthetic substances made from industrial chemicals.

Fentanyl and methamphetamines have been around for years. Now, illicit chemists are adulterating batches of street drugs with a fast-changing and often baffling mix of compounds, ranging from Novocaine to a stabilizer used in plastics manufacturing called BTPMS.

"Why those in particular are being put into the drug supply is a bit of a medical mystery at this point," said Nabarun Dasgupta, a researcher who studies street drugs and overdose patterns at the University of North Carolina.

"We're encountering something we've never seen before"

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