Free Republic

A powerful new synthetic opioid said to be more potent than fentanyl has been linked to dozens of recent deaths in the U.S., prompting warnings from health officials. Tennessee was an early hotspot, with the state’s health department announcing in March that more than 30 fatal overdoses had been associated with cychlorphine since October 2025. An April 2026 notice from the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy cited at least 41 Tennessee deaths between July 2025 and February 2026 and at least 55 deaths nationally. Fatal overdoses have also been reported in Illinois, California and Oklahoma, according to...

San Francisco health authorities are raising urgent concerns after a powerful synthetic opioid was detected in the city for the first time, and is already being tied to a fatal overdose earlier this month. Officials with the San Francisco Department of Public Health say the drug, known as cychlorphine, surfaced in a counterfeit pill, prompting alarm over its extreme potency and unpredictable presence in the illicit drug market. “We believe it is more potent than fentanyl. It was found we believe in someone using a counterfeit pill,” Daniel Tsai, director San Francisco Department of Public Health told ABC7. Law enforcement...