CADCA’s 25th Mid-Year Annual Training Institute and the DEA’s Fentanyl-Free America Summit

 

From July 14 – 16, Colombo Plan’s CEO, Thom Browne,  attended and presented at the combined CADCA’s 25th Mid-Year Annual Training Institute and the DEA’s Fentanyl-Free America Summit. This event was attended by over 3,000 community-based drug cocalitions, law enforcement, and public health agencies, in addition to participants from over 25 countries representing their national level drug-free community coalitions.

 

Attendees also included: Executive branch agencies: Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Department of Justice (acting Attorney General),  Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and Legislative branch representatives: Senator Ashley Moody.

 

The Colombo Plan CEO provided a major plenary session for both co-events entitled: “Emerging Lethal Synthetic Drugs and Dangerous Drug Mixtures: The Wave of the Future and How We Should Respond.”  This presentation provided an overview of several Colombo Plan projects using state of the art technologies to test street drugs in the U.S. and numerous countries worldwide, uncovering hidden factors that drive overdose and chronic health problems in substance users, in addition to factors driving national-level drug epidemics. 

 

The presentation also provided concrete examples of newly emerging lethal synthetic drugs (e.g., nitazene & orphine compounds) causing overdose in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Southeast Asia; dangerous drug mixtures challenging the western hemisphere and Southeast Asia (Meth/MDMA/Ketamine mixtures and etomidate vaping); and lethal synthetic drug combinations (nitazene/cannabinoid mixtures) causing overdose death in western Africa, to name a few.

 

The presentation concluded with an overview on how Colombo Plan forensics programs provide early warning sessions and lessons-learned for all countries worldwide. For instance, in 2017 Colombo Plan and DEA Educational Foundation uncovered lethal “pink cocaine” mixtures of stimulants (meth, cocaine, MDMA) combined with hallucinogens (ketamine, LSD) causing death and serious health problems in Latin America. Lessons learned from addressing the effects of this dangerous drug combination were passed on to the United States and Southeast Asia eight years later when these lethal combinations began appearing in early 2025 in the U.S. and Southeast Asia. Likewise, Southeast Asia experience with etomidate vaping was passed on to the U.S. at this year’s CADCA/DEA Summits, as the U.S. (via the Colombo Plan/CFSRE Sentinel program) discovered etomidate mixtures in early 2026.