U.S. authorities are warning of a new synthetic opioid from China that can be up to 50 times more potent than fentanyl.
Nitazenes pose an emerging threat as they are more resistant to naloxone, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses. They are often mixed with other drugs and delivered in the form of counterfeit pills mimicking drugs such as Xanax or Percocet, according to authorities.
Frank Tarentino, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) New York Division, said that the presence of nitazenes coming from China has been increasingly prevalent on the illicit drug scene.
“Here in the United States, we have found it in heroin, methamphetamine, in some cases fentanyl, and more alarmingly, we have now seen it pressed into pills,” he said in a Sept. 10 interview with NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet….