Nitazines still spreading:
Drug-related deaths in England and Wales have soared to a new record high, with official figures revealing 5,565 fatalities from drug poisoning last year.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported this 2.1 per cent rise from 2023, the highest total since records began in 1993. Alarmingly, 195 of these deaths involved nitazenes, a powerful synthetic opioid, nearly quadrupling the 52 fatalities recorded in 2023.
As a proportion of the deaths, it's still relatively small. I suggest that it may be that nitazenes are being used as an active cut in H and forensics weren't actively looking for what I remind you is a class of drug, not a single compoud. That is what happened with α-methyl fentanyl. It's unclear when it first turned up on the US market. It was intended to be an active cut and it was only when dealers attempted to sell it alone that the DEA even guessed there was something new out there.
Unlike the original attempt by Thomas K. Highsmith (one death - his own) and then the plague in Russia in the mid-90s, it's not purely etonitazene which is the most potent example Ciba found (x1500M in analgesic activity in animal models), we are faced with a range of compounds with a potency range measured in orders of magnitude.
BTW someone suggested that nitazenes misrepresented as benzodiazepines was unlikely. Well, I believe a pill-press was recovered from a nitazene processing location in Leicster (if memory serves). I don't know if the police stated that they had examples or if the fact that only nitazenes were recovered suggested intent. But AFAIK most nitazenes are far less active orally and it wouldn't make sense to sell £50 of fake H for £1.
Again, from memory, etonitazene WAS used in a small trial in Russia and it seems that it was x60M when consumed orally. In fact, etonitazene is the only one of the class that IS used medically. It's potency means solutions are tasteless so in animal models studying pain, taste won't add a bias to the results.
Frankly, animal analgesia is a TERRIBLE metric. There are a whole bunch of compounds that would appear to be attractive... but then you look closer and find out that they are mostly acting in the KOR and MOR or KOR and NOP receptors. An animal can't tell you that while the pain has gone, it's wildly hallucinating and experiencing DYSPHORIA, not EUPHORIA. I noted a Chinese company offering a novel opioid which I immediatly realize was just that.
But don't forget, while etonitazene and clonitrazine are listed in the 1971 UNODC list of controlled drugs (which China signed up to), the other nitazenes are not. It's ALL coming from China.
