Posted on 09/16/2022 11:12:37 AM PDT by Red Badger
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Washington Division is raising awareness about nitazenes, a dangerous class of drugs they are seeing emerge in the region. Nitazines are being sourced from China and being mixed into other drugs, the DEA says. Isotonitazene, also known as nitazene or "ISO,” is a synthetic opioid first identified around 2019. Photo courtesy of U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency Nitazenes: You've probably never heard of these highly toxic drugs, and neither have many Americans who abuse opioid street drugs.
That lack of awareness could prove deadly, experts warn, because nitazenes are increasingly being added into heroin and street versions of opioid pills -- and triggering fatal overdoses.
"Laboratory test results indicate that the potency of certain nitazene analogs [e.g., isotonitazene, protonitazene, and etonitazene] greatly exceeds that of fentanyl, whereas the potency of the analog metonitazene is similar to fentanyl," explained a team of researchers from the Tennessee Department of Health.
Deaths linked to drugs are on the rise. In their report issued Friday, Jessica Korona-Bailey and colleagues said that "four times as many nitazene-involved overdoses were identified in Tennessee in 2021 than in 2020, and this number could be underestimated because of low testing frequency."
Overall, deaths in Tennessee known to be linked to the synthetic opioids rose from 10 in 2020 to 42 one year later, with a majority of those killed being young males (average age 40).
What's worse, naloxone -- the antidote injection that can save the life of someone suffering an opioid overdose -- may not help if given in a single dose in cases involving nitazenes.
"Naloxone has been effective in reversing nitazene-involved overdoses, but multiple doses might be needed," the Tennessee researchers advised.
The growing danger of nitazene-tainted opioids in illicit drug supply isn't specific to Tennessee, of course.
In June, the Washington, D.C.-based branch of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency issued an alert on the same class of drugs being spotted in that area.
"A drug that was never approved for medical use, nitazenes are being sourced from China and being mixed into other drugs," the DEA explained in a statement.
One nitazene, isotonatazene (nicknamed ISO), was especially prevalent in the D.C. area.
"First identified around 2019 in the Midwest, this dangerous drug has moved into the Southern states and, more recently, along the Eastern seaboard," the agency explained.
"Much more potent than heroin and morphine [similar to fentanyl], ISO is being mixed into and marketed as other drugs to make drugs more potent and cheaper to produce. The major concern: This drug can and has caused deadly overdoses in unsuspecting victims," according to the DEA.
ISO is now often mixed in with street heroin, or pressed into the makeup of counterfeit opioid pills "falsely marketed as pharmaceutical medication [like Dilaudid 'M-8' tablets and oxycodone 'M30' tablets]," the DEA explained.
"People have to keep in mind, with all the synthetic drugs out there and the way they're being mixed together, you never know what you're actually buying," DEA Intelligence Analyst Maura Gaffney said in the statement.
So far, the spread of nitazenes remains relatively low, but "we want to get this info out and warn people," said Jarod Forget, Special Agent in Charge of the DEA's Washington Division.
"If we can educate and inform our communities about the dangers of taking counterfeit prescription pills or other drugs, we stem the proliferation of these deadly opioids, stop all of these senseless deaths, and help keep our neighbors and loved ones safe," Forget said in the statement.
According to the latest national data, U.S. drug overdoses hit a record high in 2021 -- more than 108,000 lives lost. Three-quarters of those deaths involved synthetic opioids such as fentanyl or nitazenes.
The Tennessee study was published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a journal of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
More information:
Find out more about opioids at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.
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Tell the EMTs to quit carrying naloxone on the ambulance and assume the victim has a DNR necklace/bracelet somewhere on his/her body. It will work itself out.
How the CCP weakens and destroys people in the West - this is likely a PAP operation as is the the FR story below.
People's Armed Police
China Expands Its Secret Police Stations Around the World
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4093813/posts?page=1
Ho Chi Minh started it.......................
We could but it might interfere with branDUHn’s cash source so, nope.
Insurance companies are “totaling” vehicles that have been stolen and found with drug paraphernalia or residue after they have been recovered.
American Indians have had alcohol in quantity anywhere from 150 to 350 years. And they haven’t adapted to it yet, despite plenty of culling over the years.
Are they better off in the eastern reservations than the west, or is that more a matter of casino money, integration, and mixed ancestry?
There’s not much culling anymore either, we try to keep babies from being starved or murdered by their addled parents.
If you don’t do drugs you have zero chance of dying from an overdose, or of a poison pretending to be something else.
Yeah. I read about someone getting an overdose because he touched and object with Fentanyl on it. What a nasty surprise.
You put it a little more kindly than I do; I call it weeding out undesirables.
Five Star Post!
Much of the drug problem would solve itself if drug overdoses were just left alone instead of treated.
And wait times in the ER would be shorter.
Now we know what the ISOs were from Tron:Legacy.
Go nuts folks.
There you go. Injecting some common sense into all the fear mongering hysteria.
I suppose that’s because Covid and the vaxes are not killing off us unwashed fast enough.
Sounds to me like Darwin Awards.
Yeah, but I do worry and wonder about the people who do feel compelled to take it.
Three sinks —— land, water and sky. Is mass murder the objective as the potential poisoning of the population begins ?
If the guy thought he was taking a Percocet or an Oxycodone, or that he was eating Skittles candy, THEN IT WAS NOT A DRUG OVERDOSE! It is then a case of INTENTIONAL POISONING! 300+ are poisoned every day, while Benedict Biden cruelly replaces the dead Americans with ILLEGAL ALIENS!!
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