The National Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS) is a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Diversion Control Division program that systematically collects drug identification results and associated information from drug cases submitted to and analyzed by Federal, State, and local forensic laboratories. These laboratories analyze controlled and noncontrolled substances secured in law enforcement operations across the country. It is an important resource for monitoring and understanding drug abuse and trafficking in the United States, including the diversion of legally manufactured drugs into illegal markets.
The national and regional estimates presented in these visualizations are based on the National Estimates Based on All Reports (NEAR) approach and were pulled from NFLIS annual and midyear reports (see links below). The NEAR approach adjusts the number of reports of drugs recorded and submitted by NFLIS-Drug laboratories by accounting for nonreporting and nonsampled laboratories and “allows for inferences to be made of the total number of analyzed drug reports in the entire NFLIS-Drug ‘universe’ of State and local forensic drug laboratories.”1
The annual estimates are based on results of drug cases submitted to State and local laboratories from January through December of a given year and analyzed by March 31 of the following year. The midyear estimates are based on results of drug cases submitted to State and local laboratories from January 1 through June 30 and analyzed by September 30 of the given year.
To access the annual and midyear NFLIS-Drug reports for the data used to generate these visualizations, please see the DEA NFLIS Reports page.
To access additional DEA reference and guidance materials, please see the NFLIS Public Resource Library.
