Experts suspect that the hundreds of times stronger opioids than heroin that have killed 54 people in the last six months are manufactured in a Chinese laboratory.
According to post-mortem toxicology studies, nitazenes, a synthetic opioid, were implicated in the deaths.
According to the National Crime Agency (NCA), the drugs—which have the potential to be up to 300 times more potent than heroin and up to 10 times more potent than fentanyl, the poison that has wreaked havoc on the US—are being sent from China by postal service to Britain.
Fifteen new synthetic opioids will be categorized as Class A medications by the government.
A worldwide drug issue
The primary source of the opioid problem in the United States is fentanyl, a synthetic opioid produced in China that claimed 75,000 lives last year.
A non-fatal overdose by an 18-year-old in Britain in 2021 brought attention to the new and deadly nitazenes, which have been linked to an increasing number of fatal overdoses in the US.
There was an increase in drug-related deaths in the summer, with 45 individuals in England and nine in Scotland having drugs in their systems when they passed away. In two months, 16 individuals in Birmingham passed away.
The head of public health for Birmingham, Dr. Justin Varney, stated that nitazenes may signify “a turning moment in the drug market” and result in “a global drug problem.”
To confirm its presence, more testing is being done on forty more instances.
The NCA deputy director, Charles Yates, told BBC News that the medicines are probably made in illegal laboratories in China and sent by “post” to the UK.
The NCA thinks that drug-dealing gangs frequently combine the substances with heroin to fortify street-sold goods.
One woman, Amy, equated taking it for the first time to taking heroin and said she “wasn’t expecting” the severity of it. Amy talked to the BBC about her heroin addiction for 20 years.
“It was like a blanket—that’s why it’s been so addictive,” the woman stated, noting that dealers in Birmingham were mislabeled as fentanyl traffickers and selling heroin laced with nitazenes.
“In the last few months, I’ve lost four or five people.” “I must put an end to it,” she stated.
Because of their extreme potency and addictive nature, nitazenes, which were initially created as painkillers in the 1950s, have never been granted a license for usage.
Synthetic opioids can cause a variety of symptoms, such as blue or grey lips, drowsiness, nausea or vomiting, small, narrow pupils, diminished or loss of consciousness, breathing difficulties, cold, clammy skin, and a slow heart rate.
If you have any of these symptoms after using synthetic opioids, you should contact 999 and get care right once.
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