There are calls for action this week over a deadly synthetic opioid up to 500 times stronger than heroin that is growing increasingly prominent in the drug trade.
The Health Services Union joined with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Unharm, the Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies (NADA), NSW Users and AIDS Association (NUAA), UNSW’s drug police modelling program, and crossbench MPs Alex Greenwich and Jeremy Buckingham, to call for preparations on a potentially imminent overdose crisis.
The culprit is nitazenes, a deadly synthetic drug that has caused dozens of overdoses in NSW alone this year.
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Just two milligrams can be a fatal dose, and the drug has been found mixed in with others sold as MDMA, cocaine, ketamine, heroin, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, and even vapes.
NSW Health has issued a number of alerts about the presence of the drug on Australian shores this year.
Now, the health advocates group is calling for a number of new initiatives to confront the issue, including increased distribution of the life-saving overdose-reversal medication naloxone, and pill testing facilities.
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They have also called on the Minns government to launch a public awareness campaign around the drug to ensure people are aware of the danger.
“The community is completely unprepared – most people don’t know nitazenes exist, let alone how to avoid them and what to do if someone overdoses,” Unharm CEO Dr Will Tregoninc said.
“NSW is on the brink of an unprecedented overdose crisis and Chris Minns needs to act now.”
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He warned NSW could become the next frontier of the global opioid crisis.
RACGP addiction medicine spokesperson Dr Marguerite Tracy backed Unharm’s call to action.
“We have seen increasing deaths and overdoses from synthetic opioids or nitazenes in NSW,” she said.
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“These drugs can be hundreds of times more potent than other opioids.
“The evidence shows a health-based harm minimisation approach which engages people in treatment and management saves lives.”
Nitazenes were initially developed in the 1950s as an alternative painkiller, but were never cleared for human use.
They are cheaper and easier to produce than heroin and can appear in many forms, including powders, tablets, and vape liquids.
They have been increasingly found in heroin around the world after the Taliban cracked down on poppy production in Afghanistan.
Data from the UK shows they are causing almost one death a day, a sharp rise since they were first detected in illicit drugs there in 2021.
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