NSW Government Urged to Act on Deadly Opioid Nitazenes

Seized (MDMA) ecstasy tablets are displayed at the Australian Federal Police headquarters in Melbourne, Australia, on June 30, 2006. Sean Garnsworthy/Getty Images

Nitazenes, a deadly synthetic opioid many times stronger than fentanyl, has re-emerged in Australia, with the New South Wales (NSW) government pushed to take urgent action.

Nitazenes, which can be up to 500 times stronger than heroin, have caused dozens of overdoses in NSW this year. While just two milligrams of the substance can be a fatal dose, they have been found mixed in drugs sold as MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, heroin, illicit vapes, and counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

On Aug. 27, NSW MPs Alex Greenwich and Jeremy Buckingham launched a Synthetic Opioids Preparedness Plan, together with the Health Services Union, Royal Australian College of General Practitioners and advocates Unharm, the Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies, NSW Users and AIDS Association, and the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Drug Policy Modeling Program.

The plan outlines urgent steps the NSW government should take to help protect the state, including: increasing public awareness; distributing more naloxone, the lifesaving overdose reversal medication; and establishing publicly accessible drug checking services to identify drugs contaminated with nitazenes.

Stronger Than Fentanyl

Sometimes called “Frankenstein opioids,” nitazenes was developed by researchers in Switzerland in the 1950s and first detected in Australian emergency room admissions in 2022, according to a paper in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology.

One sample of the drug was found to be 43 times more potent than fentanyl, which has reportedly claimed the lives of stars like Lil Peep and Tom Petty.

Some symptoms nitazenes can cause include slowed breathing or even respiratory failure, drowsiness or loss of consciousness, the skin turning blue or grey, and potentially, death.

Made in China

Nitazenes sourced from China can be easily purchased online and are harming lives in Australia, the United States, and other parts of the world, according to an investigation by The Epoch Times.

China-based chemical companies often attempt to evade law enforcement by using re-shippers, false return labels, false invoices, fraudulent postage, and packaging that conceals the true contents of the parcels and the identity of the distributors, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

These companies tend to use cryptocurrency transactions to conceal their identities and the location of their funds. Unfortunately, the communist regime rarely acts against the leaders of Chinese criminal syndicates and, as U.S.-China ties grow intense, became more unwilling to cooperate on counternarcotics.

“With the arrival of nitazenes, a deadly synthetic opioid, in the Sydney recreational and illicit drug trade, pill testing or drug checking has now become a matter of life or death,” Mr. Greenwich wrote in a social media post.

“We urgently need the NSW Government to begin an education campaign, provide overdose-reversing medication naloxone more widely, and embrace drug checking to save lives.”

The Epoch Times has reached out to the NSW government for comment.

Rex Widerstrom contributed to this report.