A powerful drug, sourced from China, and is threatening the lives of Australian addicts, can be readily purchased online, according to an investigation by The Epoch Times.
While authorities have admitted it can be purchased using Bitcoin on the “dark web”—requiring the would-be purchaser to at least understand how to access and find information on it—a short search led to multiple sites selling the drug on the open internet.
One site, claims the drug has “not yet been banned” but nonetheless notes that “deaths are on the rise” before offering buyers anything from five grams for US$185, to one kilogram for US$11,900.
It offers the option to contact the seller via WhatsApp, Wickr, or a “customer service number” that traces back to the central coast of Florida.
Nitazine—a synthetic opioid many times stronger than fentanyl—was developed by researchers in Switzerland in the 1950s but was never approved for use because of its dangerous effect on respiration.
Now it has begun to surface in Australia after its connection to deaths in the United States and UK.
One sample of the new drug was found to be 43 times more potent than fentanyl, which until recently, was the strongest opioid available to addicts.
Accidental overdoses involving fentanyl have reportedly claimed the lives of stars like Cloud, Mac Miller, Lil Peep, Tom Petty, and Prince.
The Fentanyl Crisis
Governments are still struggling to stem imports of fentanyl.The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2022 seized more than 58.4 million fentanyl-laced fake pills.
In the 12 months ending on January 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported drug overdoses killing more than 107,000 people across the United States. Over two-thirds of those deaths involved synthetic opioids, primarily fentanyl.
In the UK, 54 people have died in the past six months from taking nitazenes, with the National Crime Agency (NCA) warning the number could be much higher as they await results from 40 other cases.
Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) co-led the legislation.
‘Frankenstein Opioids’
Nitazenes, sometimes called “Frankenstein opioids,” were first recorded in Australia in 2022, leading authorities in New South Wales (NSW), Victoria, Queensland, and the ACT to warn against the use of the potentially lethal drug.The highly addictive drug can be made in powder, pill, and liquid form.
Due to its extreme potency, nitazenes are likely to induce slowed breathing or even respiratory failure, drowsiness or loss of consciousness, the skin turning blue or grey, and potentially death.
According to drug education websites, nitazines are cheaper to produce than fentanyl, making them more attractive for drug distributors despite the increased danger posed to users.
“China has a large number of unregulated labs that will produce anything that the customer wants. It seems that they have latched on to this and they are making, they’re synthesizing the nitazine, which incidentally is a family of compounds of several different ones”, said Dr. Joe Schwarcz, a chemistry professor and the director of the McGill University office for science and society.
Users May Be Unaware, Compounding the Dangers
Because dealers are cutting better-known drugs with nitazenes to make their supply last longer, many people will have no idea that they have consumed the new drug.Then, when they overdose, medical staff will also be unaware.
While naloxone can reverse the effects of opioids, a far higher dose is needed if the patient has consumed nitazenes compared to someone who has overdosed on fentanyl.
Because of the difficulty of detection and the relative newness of the drug, figures for deaths in Australia are not available.
But the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education in the United States has identified at least 749 nitazene-involved deaths since 2019, almost certainly an undercount.
In Melbourne, the party drug ketamine—deemed by users to be relatively safe because it is difficult to overdose on—was found to contain nitazenes.
BTNX, a manufacturer of diagnostic test strips and developer of the original fentanyl strips, has now developed a new test to detect the presence of nitazenes in drug samples.
Authorities Indict, Sanction Chinese Figures
In the United States, prosecutors in South Florida have indicted a Chinese chemical sales company and one of its employees, alleging the company was selling nitazenes via websites, social media accounts, and messaging apps to customers in the United States, Europe, Asia, and South America.They also charged a man, who they allege used WhatsApp and Bitcoin, to purchase nitazenes to mix with fentanyl or heroin, to stretch out his supplies of opioids and create an “ultra-powerful substance.”
Chinese chemical and pharmaceutical companies have played a significant role in the manufacture of illegal synthetic drugs over the past decade.
Although Beijing announced in November that it would curb the sale of precursor chemicals—used by Mexican cartels to manufacture fentanyl—it has not acted to prohibit the making of nitazenes, demand for which is expected to increase as fentanyl becomes harder to obtain.
In addition, these companies tend to use cryptocurrency transactions to conceal their identities and the location and movement of their funds.
Most shipments are to Mexico, where the Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación receive precursors that are then synthesised within clandestine laboratories.
And, as ties with Beijing grow more tense, the communist regime’s willingness to cooperate with Washington on counternarcotics has reduced.
Links to Triads, CCP
A year earlier, the U.S. Treasury announced sanctions against several of what it called “corrupt actors” including Wan Kuok Koi, commonly known as “Broken Tooth,” a member of the Chinese Communist Party of China’s (CCP) Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and a leader of the 14K Triad, for—among other things—drug trafficking.But sources say Beijing rarely acts against the top echelons of Chinese criminal syndicates unless they specifically cross a narrow set of government interests.
Chinese criminal groups such as the 14K cultivate political capital with CCP authorities and diplomats abroad by also promoting the political, strategic, and economic interests of Beijing.
Mr. Wan, for instance, established the “World Hongmen History and Culture Association,” an organisation also sanctioned by the United States.
Alex J. Krotulski, the associate director of toxicology and chemistry services at the Center for Forensic Science Research & Education, explained that, since detection and prosecution of nitazene importation relies on the suspect substance being identified as having been banned, “labs in China [are] creating new modifications, new drugs that sort of skirt around these national and international laws, but still retain those opioid-like effects that people are interested in.”
China is also the principal supplier of precursor chemicals for methamphetamine production in East Asia and Mexico.
In Australia, police in South Australia arrested a 25-year-old Mount Barker man in October, alleging he ran an online business selling nitazenes from his home. They seized five kilograms of the synthetic opioid.
The substance is also on the rise in NSW’s Central Coast, where it has been found in batches of heroin.
And in Queensland, police put out an alert after nitazenes were found in counterfeit Xanax pills.
