Health experts and advocates have issued an urgent warning about a dangerous and illicit drug amid fears deaths in Australia will soar.
Pills sold as MDMA have been found to contain nitacenes, a dangerous and highly potent drug manufactured in illicit Chinese laboratories.
The super-potent synthetic opioid is similar to fentanyl, which has already devastated parts of the United States.
But nitazenes are more dangerous than fentanyl and a thousand times stronger than morphine, making their users much more likely to overdose.
With 20 deaths and dozens of overdoses already reported in Australia, health authorities and experts, including Dr Marianne Jauncey, are now on high alert.
Health experts like Dr. Marianne Jauncey (pictured) are on high alert about nitacenes
“Frankly, it’s terrifying,” he said. 60 minutes.
“If nitacenes enter the illicit drug supply in Australia, deaths will skyrocket.”
Ms Jauncey runs the safe injection room in Sydney’s Kings Cross and warned everyone should carry naloxone, a drug that reverses a nitacene overdose.
“It will save your life if you overdose on opioids,” he said.
“This should be available in glove compartments and kitchen cabinets across the country.”
Jauncey warned that any type of substance, from MDMA to cocaine, counterfeit painkillers and even vaporizers, could contain nitacenes.
He said not knowing what substances they have been contaminated with is another reason why people should be able to test their medications before taking them.
“Surely it makes sense to put information and power in people’s hands, give them information about what they are using,” he said.
“It’s actually beyond frustrating when lives are at stake.”
Law reform activist Caitlyn Dooley said she knew something was very wrong when the music stopped at a rave party she was working at.
Law reform activist Caitlyn Dooley knew something was seriously wrong when she noticed revelers getting sick at a rave in January.
Ms Dooley, of drug harm reduction program DanceWize, said her first encounter with the drug was when her team was called following reports of a drug overdose at an event.
He said he became aware that small pressed pills marked with the Red Bull logo were being sold as MDMA, but they were so dangerous there was no way to take them safely.
“People had been taking a substance that was a pressed pill that was sold as MDMA, but that had the effect of causing an extreme opioid overdose,” he told the program.
“They were just nitazines and they were sold to children as MDMA, so it was just poison.”
Fortunately, no revelers died that night as a group of quick-thinking volunteers administered naloxone to several people who had taken nitazenes.
“They were fine for 20 minutes and back down,” Dooley recalled.
‘So all these people had to be transported to hospital. All of them needed intravenous naloxone to survive.’
The growing emergence of nitacenes has reignited the debate over pill testing.
Advocates have renewed calls for federal and state governments to address the problem before it is too late.
Small pressed pills marked with the Red Bull logo were sold to children as MDMA, but they were laced with nitazines.
‘Why do we say the only tests we can do are after the event?’ Dr. Jauncey asked.
“Surely it makes sense to put information and power in people’s hands, give them information about what they are using.”
Claire Rocha’s son Dylan lost his life after using heroin contaminated with nitacenes in England three years ago.
He was one of the first people to die from nitacenes in the UK.
His heartbroken mother still thinks about the moment she found out he had died.
She revealed she went upstairs and found her 21-year-old unconscious in bed and turning blue.
British mother Claire Rocha lost her son Dylan to nitazenes. Image: 60 minutes
“The paramedic came out and said, ‘I’m so sorry.’ We’ve done everything we can. Dylan actually passed away,” Mrs. Rocha recalled.
‘He made some very questionable decisions and choices. But at the end of the day, he thought it was safe to take what he took, he had taken that amount before, he thought it would be fine.
And it wasn’t.
“He was finally killed by a silent killer that none of us knew… I never would have known it was there.
“The smallest amount can be fatal.”