Ricardo Leal, a forensic expert at the Brazilian Society of Toxicology (SBTox), warned of the dangers of the nitazenes synthetic super-opioids arriving to Brazil from China in an interview published by the Argentine outlet Infobae on Friday.

Leal stressed that “no country is prepared to deal with an emergency like this,” as the drug, which killed more than 100,000 people in the United States in 2023, is up to 50 times more potent than fentanyl.

“Personally, I am concerned first as an expert and then as a citizen. Although no deaths from nitazenes have been reported so far in Brazil, these are highly toxic substances that can cause serious and fatal poisonings,” Leal told Infobae. “It is a public health issue, not just a public safety issue.”

“No country is prepared to deal with such an emergency. Not to mention the fact that with this new drug we risk losing even more young people than we already lose to other drugs like crack, young people who could be productive for our society and our country,” he continued.

Nitazenes were first developed in the 1950s as opioid analgesics but were never approved for medical or therapeutic use, unlike fentanyl, due to their higher potency and elevated potential for addiction. Leal explained that nitazenes’ side effects discouraged further progress during preclinical studies.

In late January, Brazil’s Justice and Public Security Ministry presented a study on the threats of nitazenes amid their growing use internationally. The study was prepared in collaboration with local institutions, Brazil’s Federal Police, and both the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC).

The study found a surge in seizures caused by such opioids in Brazil between July 2022 and April 2023. Out of 140 samples seized by São Paulo’s civil police during that time frame, nitazenes were present in 133, which amounted to 95 percent of the total.

“The issue is worrying, not because of its spread, but because of its potency and the related dangers,” Marta Machado, head of Brazil’s National Secretariat for Drug Policies and Asset Management, said during the study’s presentation in January. “The idea is to monitor these risks and prepare ourselves to face a possible escalation of the situation.”

Asked by Infobae if nitazenes are being produced in Brazil, Leal answered that, to date, the quantities seized by Brazilian authorities indicate that the nitazenes arrive already prepared in their origin country, “mainly from Asia, particularly from China.”

Leal explained that nitazenes were found in a clandestine laboratory in São Paulo, where they were being used to mix with K9, a synthetic cannabinoid.

“The greatest risk is that of unconscious consumption by the consumer,” Leal explained. “Anyone who buys a dose of cocaine or K9 probably does not know if nitazene has been added to it, but once the drug is consumed, the effects can be devastating precisely because of the nitazene.”

The expert further explained that nitazenes trafficking in Brazil currently centers around metonitazene, a nitazene compound, due to its synthesis having a better yield and because it is easier to obtain during the production synthesis process.

“At the moment, only some nitazenes are on the [Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency] Anvisa list of controlled substances, but not the entire class, a step that will have to be taken in the future,” Leal pointed out.

Asked what he considered to be the challenges in identifying nitazenes in Brazil, Leal pointed to the development of police scientific laboratories, which, he asserted, the Brazilian Justice Ministry has started to invest in its equipment.

“We need advanced technology capable of analyzing very small quantities of drugs in post mortem cases,” Leal said. “You have to keep in mind that Brazil is a gigantic country, with 26 states and 200 million inhabitants.”

“As you can imagine, it is not an easy job, but a real effort is being made so that all the states in the country have the technological capacity to give a scientific response to society on this important issue as soon as possible,” he continued.

With regard to fentanyl, the forensic expert stated that although Brazil does not have a synthetic opioid epidemic similar to the United States, scientific studies conducted by Professor José Luiz Costa from the University of Campinas together with São Paulo’s Scientific Police found the presence of fentanyl in “quite a few cases” attributed to a “history of medical use” after analyzing several hundred autopsies. 

“In other words, we are seeing deaths related to fentanyl use, but by healthcare workers who have access to fentanyl in a hospital setting and become addicted from there,” Leal said.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.