Growing threat of deadly synthetic opioids could pose ‘serious’ risks to public health, officials warn

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Super-potent synthetic opioids pose a growing threat to Europe and could have a “serious” impact on public health, the European Union’s drug watchdog official has warned.

The Taliban’s crackdown on opium production in Afghanistan could reduce heroin supplies and flood the cracks of Europe’s illicit drug market with a deadly, powerful synthetic opioid known as nitazene, which is 500 times more potent than heroin. There are growing concerns that this may be the case.

Experts and frontline drug services in the UK have been on alert for months over the spread of Nitazene, which in the past two years has been found to be contaminated not only with heroin, but also with illegal e-cigarettes, diazepam and codeine. It’s ringing.

Although not all coroners are yet testing for the drug, the National Crime Agency is reported to have identified 65 Nizen deaths in the second half of 2023 alone, indicating that there are no traces of drug supply. The number of detections has increased fivefold in two years. In November, police seized 150,000 Nizen tablets in London, the largest recovery of synthetic opioids in British history.

Experts from the School of Public Health said in January that a potential influx of Nitazen could accelerate a “second wave” of the UK’s current drug death crisis, as the global drug market is “rapidly evolving”. I warned you that it’s sexual. Although the UK has so far escaped a US-style opioid epidemic, it already suffers thousands of fatal overdoses each year.

write to lancet public health The deaths confirmed by the NCA are likely to be just the “tip of the iceberg”, experts said, warning the government that there is “political pressure” to take more drastic action “necessary to prevent many more deaths”. He urged them to find capital.

Their warnings have now been highlighted by the EU’s drug watchdog, which has published a response in the same journal noting that fatal overdoses are rapidly increasing in countries where Nitazen is already endemic. did.

Five experts from the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction wrote that “Nitazen is a credible threat”, adding: “Projected changes in heroin availability in Europe may herald increased use of synthetic opioids, which could have significant public health implications.”

The Baltic states “have a long history of synthetic opioid problems dating back to the Taliban’s earlier ban on opioid production, which could be an early indicator of a more generalized problem in the future,” he said, pointing to Estonia and Latvia as potential targets for Nitazen. I pointed it out as an example to show how it is used. It could encourage a surge in overdoses.

Nitazene was first detected in Estonia in 2019, and by 2022 it was found to be responsible for 39% of 82 drug deaths in Estonia that year. The following year, the number of overdose deaths in Estonia soared to 117, with Nitazen linked to just under half of them.

Across the border in Latvia, nitazen was detected in just two of the 63 fatal overdoses the country suffered in 2022. The following year, the total number of drug deaths more than doubled to 130, with 38 post-mortem toxicology tests confirming Nitazene.

Researchers said the “alarming” preliminary figures for 2023 may be an underestimate, with deaths reported as far away as the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean. It warned of signs that problems related to Nitazen may be growing within the EU. , non-fatal overdose in Ireland.

EU experts backed a January call for governments to “find the political capital to push forward the policies needed to prevent more deaths” and said they would “take steps to address the opioid problem. It cannot be assumed that existing approaches will be sufficient without adapting them to the challenges.” It is caused by the emergence of a series of highly potent but pharmacologically diverse substances. ”

Experts warned in January that “measures taken now may not be taken immediately” and called for more heroin prescribing and drug testing facilities, as well as the introduction of overdose prevention centres. Both countries oppose the wide-ranging demands. Conservative Party and Labor Party.