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When someone buys a drug illegally, they cannot be sure exactly what is in it.

More than 1 in 3 samples submitted to the Welsh Emerging Drug Identification Service (Wedinos) contained something other than what buyers expected, according to submissions in which buyers said what they believed they had purchased. Between April 2025 and March 2026, 36.6% of samples submitted to Wedinos did not contain the expected substance.

These findings illustrate how the illicit drug market is often defined by substitution: The name, appearance or packaging of a drug may tell us surprisingly little about what is actually inside it.

One of the most concerning findings in the latest Wedinos report is the identification of a new group of synthetic opioids known as "orphine analogs." Synthetic opioids are chemically produced drugs that can have effects similar to opioids such as morphine and heroin.

Orphine analogs are highly potent synthetic opioids, meaning they can have powerful effects at very small doses. That creates a particular risk when someone believes they are taking heroin but is actually consuming a different, potentially more potent substance.

The findings are particularly concerning because orphine analogs were identified alongside veterinary sedatives in samples submitted as heroin. The significance is not necessarily that this particular combination has a unique or established toxic effect, but that someone believing they have bought heroin may instead be exposed to multiple unexpected psychoactive substances, making the effects and risks much harder to predict.

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