On Thursday, April 6, 2017, the CJCC convened its annual Spring Public Meeting focused on the growing threat to District communities posed by synthetic opiates – highly addicting and tightly regulated substances that are increasingly being manufactured illicitly. These lethal drugs are relatively easy to obtain via the web or on the street. Synthetic opiate-related overdoses and deaths are on the rise, reaching epidemic proportions across the United States. Locally, there has an increase in the numbers of synthetic-opiate related overdoses and deaths in the District.