Canada - Halifax police seize isotonitazene, 'extremely dangerous' opioid that's stronger than fentanyl

[S.J.B.]

Halifax police seize 'extremely dangerous' opioid that's stronger than fentanyl
Haley Ryan
CBC
March 5th, 2020

Police in Halifax have seized a large amount of an opioid even stronger than fentanyl, which they say has a "great potential to be fatal."

Over two weeks in February, Halifax Regional Police say investigators in the Guns and Gangs Unit of the Integrated Criminal Investigation Division made a number of searches in relation to a drug trafficking case.

Through the investigation, police searched a residence on Dentith Road in Spryfield on Feb. 12 and seized multiple items, including about 1,900 unknown pills.

Five people were charged soon after with various drug trafficking and possession charges.

The drugs were sent to Health Canada for analysis. They confirmed the tablets are isotonitazene, a synthetic opioid they told police was "similar to but stronger than fentanyl," according to a news release.

Read the full story here.

Isotonitazene:

 

[Nagelfar]

Never heard of this one, but it is appearing in mass. Has it been discovered in any low level possession / overdose cases?

The pills are pressed to look like brand name Dilaudid triangle eights. I remember crushing those and shooting them. I hope they're at least formulated to be equivalent in potency to the hydromorphone.

 

[sekio]

It's a very close relative of etonitazine, the drug that Mortin Thiokol ex-chemist Tom Highsmith got busted for synthesizing (and getting high on the job from a nasal spray inhaler with a solution of etonitazene), and later killed himself due to supposedly permanent, severe opioid dependency unmanageable by massive amounts of methadone. (Or so the story goes)

If ultrapotent opioids are your game, this is probably worth looking at just for its novel structure, but repeated or recreational use I can't see ending well at all.

While isotonitazene was not compared directly to morphine in this assay, it was found to be around 2.5x more potent than hydromorphone and slightly more potent than fentanyl

.

Another reference gives a figure of isotonitazene being 500x as strong as morphine (= 6.25x fentanyl)

 

[S.J.B.]

It's worth mentioning that this is arguably a controlled substance in Canada as the Controlled Drugs and Substances act includes "benzimidazoles, their salts, derivatives and salts of derivatives" in Schedule I. That said, isotonitazene isn't mentioned specifically, and I've always felt that the CDSA would fall apart quite spectacularly if anybody was ever charged for a drug of ambiguous legality and brought a constitutional challenge against the CDSA on the basis of its pervasive vagueness, which is particularly bad relative to the American and British (MODA, not PSA) laws. Even the American Analog Act has been struck down in at least one lower court and Canadian analogue provisions are much more nebulous.

 

[sekio]

Has anyone actually been successfully prosecuted under the Canadian anlogue act yet? I have a feeling most of the analogue drug market is considered too small to be a real concern - I know people have got "love letters" from customs but no arrests to my knowledge.

 

[S.J.B.]

Has anyone actually been successfully prosecuted under the Canadian anlogue act yet?

I have looked into this extensively and there are a few published cases, all involving cathinones:

R. c. Genest
R. v Lin Aung Nyan
R. v Gaudette
R v Loewen

There are at least two other cases, as listed in R. v Gaudette:

The only sentencing decisions before me that deal specifically with trafficking in a substance such as Methylone are the cases of R. v. Hubek and R. v. Nyan. In the case of R. v. Hubek, Judge Burdett noted that Methylone was a relatively new drugs and its inclusion in Schedule 1 clearly indicated Parliament's intent that it be treated in the same manner as other serious drugs such as heroin and cocaine. In that case, the offender imported three packages of Methylone from China disguised as salt and each package contained five kilograms of Methylone with a total value of approximately $1 million. The court imposed a sentence of four years' incarceration in that case noting that the offender was a first-time offender, but she continued to deny her criminal conduct and expressed no remorse. In the case of R. v. Nyan, the 24-year-old offender was a street to mid-level dealer of Methylone who was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and two years of probation. The offender's age and lack of criminal record were mitigating factors in that case.

There's no evidence, however, that in any of these cases the defence actually challenged the designation of these substances as controlled substance analogues -- I imagine the average defence lawyer wouldn't have a clue that this is even a disputable issue -- so it doesn't really give any indication as to how vulnerable the law is to a proper challenge.

 

[sekio]

R v. Nyan:

When they received no response to their demands to open the door, they entered the room to search for Mr. Nyan. They saw a disemboweled dog lying on its side in a cage and drugs in plain view. They obtained a warrant to search the bedroom.

????????? WHAT??? Why the fuck would you have that in your room? The mind boggles.

 

[Jopeth]

Sekio you don't have disembowled animals in your house? Am I doing it wrong?

Im going to bet that the dog ate some drugs, and they well, they got the drugs back.

 

[Ganjcat]

stronger than fet yikes what's the point of making something so deadly unless its use is as a biological weapon seriously what is the point of making something so dangerous the worse thing is as well opiates make you so desperate that if this was your only option and you didn't have other opiates.. I dunno.. big trouble.. big big trouble