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A class of drugs called nitazane – developed in the 1950s but never approved for medical use – is causing deaths on the roads of the US and Britain. What you need to know. Just as communities are beginning to understand the deadly effects of fentanyl and oxycodone abuse, another painkilling opioid has emerged from the pharmaceutical archives as a deadly street drug. Commonly known as Nitazane, the 2-propyl benzimidazole opioid is up to 500 times more potent than heroin, putting people at increased risk of addiction.
Drug and health agencies in the UK, elsewhere in Europe, and in the US are reporting an increasing number of overdoses and deaths linked to Nitazane. There are signs that while authorities are cracking down on fentanyl, and heroin cultivation has slowed in Afghanistan under the Taliban, Nitazen is being mixed into other substances, including heroin and fentanyl – and even cannabis. Is.
What is Nitazane?
A class of more than 20 synthetic chemical compounds, nitazane was originally developed in the 1950s as an opioid analgesic – pain reliever. But they have never been approved for use in human or veterinary medicine. Synthetic drugs like nitazane and fentanyl are not naturally grown or cultivated in the environment like heroin or cannabis, but are artificially manufactured by humans using chemicals.
They began to emerge as illegal substances in the UK, US and Baltic states around 2019, although some reports suggest that several drug-related deaths in Russia in 1998 were also linked to Nitazane. They are psychoactive drugs, which, according to the World Health Organization’s definition, means that they “affect mental processes including perception, consciousness, cognition, or mood and emotions.”
Not all psychoactive substances are addictive, but nitazines are considered far more powerful than their natural “analogs” – drugs like morphine and heroin – and, as a result, experts say they are less likely to cause dependence. Are more likely to. Nitazane are controlled substances, meaning they are generally classified as dangerous and illegal narcotics.
When sold in powder form, Nitazane is yellow, brown, or off-white in color. The US Drug Enforcement Administration says Nitazane is also being put into tablets and “mismarketed as a pharmaceutical drug (such as Dilaudid ‘M-8’ tablets and Oxycodone ‘M30’ tablets). ” The effects are similar to other opioids, such as euphoria, sedation, and a kind of awake-sleep consciousness, but also respiratory depression and even arrest – you stop breathing.
Why is the risk of overdose so high?
In an open letter to the Lancet Public Health journal in February 2024, the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) wrote that nitazane has been increasingly identified in drug-related post-mortem analyses. [deaths] From 2022.”
There is some evidence that Nitazen is being mixed with other illicit drugs to reduce the cost of their production. Adam Holland of the School of Psychological Science at the University of Bristol commented – also in The Lancet Public Health – that nitazane had been detected in other opioids, benzodiazepines and substances sold as cannabis products.
“This means that many consumers are using Nitazane unknowingly, unaware of the risks they face,” Holland wrote. And part of that risk is that people can’t decide how much to dose the medications they’re taking — because they simply don’t know what they’re taking. This is shown by data from the UK, for example, where more than 50 people died after using Nitazane in the six months to December 2023.
How addictive is Nitazen?
It is difficult to put a concrete figure on the addiction to illicit substances including Nitazen – it is rarely the drug alone that determines its level of addiction. There are many biological, psychological, and social factors that influence substance use disorders, including addiction, and how they affect an individual. Instead, pharmacologists refer to a drug’s potency.
How powerful are Nitazane compared to other opioids?
A 2022 report by the UK’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Medicines (ACMD) cites a review of “preliminary studies” in which scientists administered rats with isotonitazane – known as ISO on North American streets – and including isotonitazane. 2-Benzyl benzimidazole compounds were given. , Those studies indicated that isotonitazane was 500 times stronger than morphine and isotonitazane was 1,000 times stronger than morphine.
What are the most common types of Nitazane?
The AMCD report ranks the following Nitazane from most to least potent:
etonitazen
isotonitazen
protonitazen
metonitazen
butonitazine
Etodesnitasenes
flunitazine
Methodology
What does nitazane do in the body?
Nitazine interacts with various opioid receptors in the brain and nervous system. One of these types of receptors was described in a UK government advice paper as “a key mediator” in the brain that exerts positive, therapeutic functions, such as pain relief and influencing brain reward, leading to euphoria. Emotions arise.
But a 2022 review of the function of one of the receptors stated that “both the therapeutic and undesirable effects of opioid drugs were exerted through their binding to the receptors”. Those unwanted effects included addiction, dependence, tolerance, and withdrawal symptoms.
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