The deadly fentanyl family of opioids are 50 times more potent than heroin. But nitazenes, which are flooding into the UK, can reach up to 2,000 times heroin’s potency.
They were first created in the 1950s as opioid painkillers but were never approved for medical use. For 70 years, their existence was forgotten.
As America continues to reel from a fentanyl crisis killing tens of thousands, Britain could face its own dangerous opioid crisis, former government advisors and drug experts have warned.
Britain and America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan – and the Taliban‘s subsequent narcotics ban – they re-emerged as a way to strengthen low-purity heroin in case opium supplies dwindled.
Experts are united in their fear of the rising risk of nitazenes. Yet, while heroin users are still vulnerable, young people buying traditionally legal drugs such as Valium and Xanax as coping mechanisms are also at risk.
In fact, MailOnline analysis of data from the UK’s only drug testing facility Wedinos has revealed that two-thirds of ‘medication’ tested that was bought illegally online in the past year has been laced with nitazenes.
Two-thirds of that total were bought by people intending to buy Valium (diazepam).
Thankfully, the number of nitazene-related deaths are only at 458 in the last two years.
However, there was a 166 per cent increase from 2023 (125 deaths) to 2024 (333 deaths) – more than double in a single year, and even that total is expected once toxicology and forensic testing improves and is finalised.
Steve Rolles, a senior policy analyst at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation, told MailOnline: ‘The number of deaths is rising at an alarming rate. It’s the tip of the iceberg. What has happened in the US should be a warning to policymakers in the UK.
‘All the indications are that is what is happening. I’m very wary of scaremongering about drugs but I’m deeply worried about the potential carnage opioids could do in the UK.
‘We already have the highest overdose rate in Europe. Nitazenes could make it way, way worse.
‘This is a very serious public health emergency that’s not being taken seriously enough.’
He added: ‘I am scared. There’s almost one person dying every day from nitazenes and most people haven’t even heard of it.
‘If it was anything else, there would be national panic. The government hasn’t grasped the urgency of this.’
Rolles is starting to see heroin mixed with nitazenes on the streets of Britain.
He said: ‘It does seem it’s getting more [prevalent] as the heroin supply dries up.’
Nitazenes are appearing in a variety of forms. Some are bought, often by drug dealers, as pure pills. Others are found after being cut into illegal drugs such as heroin or traditionally legal medications like Valium and Xanax – or simply sold under those brand names without having any original product in them at all.
