‘Terrifying potency’: The overdose-inducing drug invading suburbia

Drug experts have warned substances more potent than those driving the United States’ fentanyl crisis are landing on Australian shores, as the number of unintentional opioid overdose deaths continues to grow.

The Penington Institute’s Annual Overdose Report, released on Sunday, found the number of Australians who died from a drug overdose each year had once again hit a record high, with 2356 deaths in 2022, up by 79 from the year prior.

Eighty per cent of the deaths were unintentional, and opioids accounted for nearly half of these deaths.

Metonitazene, a type of nitazene, intercepted by law enforcement officers in a parcel bound for the Northern Territory.Credit: AFP

Penington Institute CEO John Ryan said lab-produced opioids, including nitazene — a substance hundreds of times stronger than heroin — were a key concern.

“Dangerous drugs, like nitazenes, are increasingly entering suburbia and country towns,” Ryan said.

“I’m tired of seeing overdose numbers in this country rise year upon year. Each time we publish this report, it is so distressing to think of the increasing number of people and families consumed by this tragedy every year.”

Unintentional drug deaths recorded in the report have more than doubled since 2002.

Health Minister Mark Butler said he had been briefed on the increase in opioid harms in the community and the emergence of nitazenes.

“The report findings from the Pennington Institute are concerning,” he said.

“This is something we’re actively monitoring.”

In July last year, the government launched a nationally consistent opioid-dependency treatment program, granting about 40,000 patients subsidised treating medicines.

Uniting Medically Supervised Injecting Centre’s medical director Marianne Jauncey said these drugs were “extraordinarily potent”.

“These are an order of magnitude stronger than fentanyl,” she said.

Jauncey was concerned overdoses would start occurring in recreational drug users not well-versed in the signs of overdose and without access to opioid overdose reversal medicine Naloxone, which is distributed for free at pharmacies and safe injecting clinics.

“Nitazines are going to start potentially killing unexpected people,” she said. “What a devastating society we live in, if it takes educated, rich, white kids dying for people to take notice.”

This year, nitazines were detected in the bodies of four people found dead in a Melbourne home, in cocaine sold in Melbourne, and in black market cannabinoid vape juice, leading to three overdoses, one of which was fatal.

In May, the Australian Federal Police warned of rising imports of nitazene after 22 packages from the UK were intercepted in October.

CEO of drug-checking and harm-minimisation advocacy group Unharm, Will Tregoning, said the “terrifying potency” of synthetic opioids meant they were easier for drug dealers to ship and import.

“They’re contaminating all sorts of other drugs, reported from people taking what they thought was MDMA, ketamine and methamphetamine,” he said.

“We’re on the brink of becoming the next frontier of the next opioid overdose crisis by nitazenes – it’s terrifying.”

Natural opioid use is also on the rise, with unintentional deaths involving heroin increasing 40 per cent between 2021 and 2022 to 460 deaths, largely concentrated in Melbourne.

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