This opioid is up to 43 times more deadly than fentanyl, resistant to Narcan causing many young Americans to die

What is Nitazenes are a class of extremely potent synthetic opioids that pose a significant threat to public health.

Nitazenes are far more potent than traditional opioids like morphine and even significantly stronger than fentanyl. Some nitazenes can be hundreds or thousands of times stronger than morphine and several times more potent than fentanyl, according to the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Origin and History: Nitazenes were initially developed as potential alternatives to morphine in the 1950s but were never approved for medical use due to their high potential for addiction and overdose.

They remained largely confined to research settings until around 2019, when they began to emerge in the illicit drug supply.

Even though nitazenes have been around for decades, they haven’t been widely used. But amid a raging opioid epidemic and a national crackdown on fentanyl, nitazenes may become more common.  Nitazenes were developed in the nineteen fifties and sixties and were meant to be a substitute for morphine.

But they were so powerful that the FDA didn’t approve them. Now they’re a schedule one drug and illegal just like heroin and LSD.

Nitazines are made in the lab and are inexpensive to produce. They block pain signals in the brain by binding to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and other sites in the body.  

A pair of Texas friends died less than three months apart after ingesting pills laced with a dangerous new synthetic opioid, and now their mothers are begging US officials to sound the alarm on the little-known drug that’s up to 43 times more lethal than fentanyl.

The young men both died this year after swallowing different pills secretly tainted with the deadly, often Narcan-resistant opioids known as nitazenes, which have begun seeping into the US at an alarming rate.

Lucci Reyes-McCallister, 22, died January 26 near Houston, Texas, after taking a pill labeled as Xanax that was actually laced with N-pyrrolidino protonitazene, an emerging form of nitazene.

The particular strain of the new synthetic narcotic that killed Lucci is 25 times more lethal than fentanyl, but other nitazenes are between five and 43 times stronger, depending on the type, according to the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission.

The stronger the strain, the more resistant the nitazene is to the overdose antidote Narcan, as seen in Lucci’s case.

Drug overdoses have surged among young people in the past decade, killing more than 230,000 individuals under the age of 35.

Accidental drug overdose drove deaths of people under 40 higher in most states between 2018 and 2022, becoming the leading cause of death for this age group in 37 states.

Fentanyl-involved non-fatal overdose rates were highest among adults aged 25–34 years.

At least 2,000 overdose deaths nationwide since 2019 have been associated with nitazenes, according to the DEA, says a Spotlight PA article. However, this number likely includes all age groups.

Data on nitazene-related deaths is limited due to the drug’s relatively recent appearance in the illicit drug supply (detected in the US since 2019) and the fact that most toxicology screenings do not routinely test for nitazenes.

So please if you know anybody that has subs and abuse problem please contact someone for help.