Nitazenes are a group of synthetic opioids hundreds of times stronger than heroin and have also been found in prescription drugs purchased online by the UK’s only national drugs-testing service.
Public Health Wales has issued a warning about the dangers of buying prescription drugs online after a testing facility received over 20 samples of benzodiazepines containing nitazenes since September this year.
Benzodiazepam is available on prescription for common conditions such as anxiety and sleeping problems, but some people bypass their GP and buy the medication online from what they believe are safe pharmacies. The medication is sometimes used recreationally and can be addictive.
WENDIOS said that a total of 50 of the drug samples—including street drugs and pharmaceuticals—sent to them this year up until October were found to contain nitazenes—up from eight in 2021 and 30 in 2022.
A series of raids and arrests in north London has led to eleven people being charged with conspiracy to supply class A and B drugs by the Metropolitan Police, who said they have seized the UK’s largest-ever stash of synthetic opioids.
The Met operation was carried out with the UK Border Agency as part of a national effort to investigate the increase in synthetic opioid products being adulterated into the drugs supply network.
Officers recovered approximately 150,000 tablets of nitazenes from an address in Waltham Forest in what they said was “a sophisticated factory set up.”
Detective Superintendent Helen Rance said: “A substantial amount of other class A and B drugs, a firearm, a pill pressing machine, over £60,000 in cash and £8,000 in cryptocurrency stored in various hard drives were also seized, along with a large quantity of mobile phones and laptops.
“It is suspected the drugs were sold via the Dark Web, using encrypted chat applications and social media.”
Ms. Rance added that synthetic opioids had been detected in batches of heroin found in London and across the UK.
The drugs are believed to have first been produced at laboratories in China, and are often mixed with heroin by drug dealing gangs due to the clampdown on heroin trafficking from Afghanistan since 2022.
“The NCA, working closely with policing, Border Force and other international partners, is ensuring that all lines of enquiry are prioritised and vigorously pursued to stem any supply of nitazenes to and within the UK. This is based on the NCA’s and partners in health and policing’s previous experience in tackling a rise of isotonitazene in 2021, which caused 24 deaths, and a spike of fentanyl-related deaths in 2017.”
Chinese labs are believed to play a major role in manufacturing fentanyl, which has killed more than a quarter of a million people in the United States since 2018. The drug has been the leading cause of death in young Americans since 2019.U.S. authorities say that China remains the primary source of the precursor chemicals, which are then processed and manufactured into synthetic opioids by Mexican drug cartels to bring into the United States, with some commentators suggesting the drug was being used as a form of “chemical warfare” by the Chinese.
