A grieving father who lost his teenage son to a deadly drug has issued a heartbreaking warning in the hope that other families will not go through a similar tragedy.
Nitazenes, nicknamed the Frankenstein of opioids, are 500 times more potent than heroin and are commonly used in party drugs and counterfeit prescription medications.
In Victoria alone, 17 lives have already been lost to this synthetic street drug, and many of them did not even suspect what this powerful drug contained.
This was the case for 18-year-old Jetson Gordon, who took a pill to help him sleep two years ago.
The apprentice carpenter who moved to Melbourne from northern New South Wales months earlier ordered oxycodone online but was unaware the drug he was sent was cut with nitazene, a drug that is 43 times stronger than fentanyl.
Jetson’s roommate found him unconscious the next morning and was unable to revive him.
“It’s been a hell of a life, losing your son… it’s something that could have been avoided, just unimaginable,” John Gordon said. Nine news.
“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else or for any other family to go through what we have had to go through.”
Jetson Gordon, 18 (left) and his father John Gordon (right) took a sleeping pill, but they didn’t know it contained the powerful drug nitazene. He died from an overdose and now his father wants to warn others about the danger so it doesn’t happen to anyone else.
The Australian Federal Police have issued a warning that there could be an influx of nitazenes (pictured) on Melbourne’s streets within months.
“It’s horrible, I never planned this, we won’t be able to have grandchildren anymore and we have to prevent it from happening again.”
Penington Institute chief executive John Ryan wants people to know that nitazenes are killing fellow Australians who had no idea they were taking the drug.
“They are the Frankenstein of opioids: they are manufactured in the laboratory and now they are out in the community killing people,” he said.
Mr Ryan said Australia was failing to recognise the problem nitazenes were causing and that inaction could inadvertently set the country on a path to “an overdose catastrophe”.
Jennifer Shumann, head of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine’s (VIFM) Drug Intelligence Unit, said her testing laboratory shows nitazenes present in cocaine and ecstasy tablets.
The drug has also been found mixed with MDMA, ketamine, heroin, counterfeit pharmaceuticals and even vapes.
And Australians should be worried: just two milligrams of nitazenes can be fatal.
Victoria Police are bracing for a wave of overdose deaths across the state in the coming months.
Commissioner Shane Patton described nitazenes as a “huge problem” and has sent a drug task force to investigate where the drugs are coming from.
Jetson Gordon (pictured)
The pills and the black package they came in were found in Jetson Gordon’s room (pictured)
Drug overdose deaths have almost doubled in Australia in the past 20 years.
In 2022, where the latest data comes from, there were more than 300 deaths, which is more than the previous year.
Eighty percent of all those deaths were recorded as accidental.
The main drugs responsible for overdoses are opioids, followed by benzodiazepines and then methamphetamines and other stimulants.
