A California family has warned about a new opioid 40 times stronger than fentanyl after their son died from the synthetic drug, with overdose cases spiking across the country.
“He was lifeless in his car,” Cindy Jacquet said of her son Bryce in an interview with local outlet KTLA. “Maybe I could’ve saved him if I knew.”
The 22-year-old’s body was found outside the family’s Stevenson Ranch home after a night out with his friends. Cindy and Bryce’s father, Andrew, said he took what he believed to be Xanax, but it was laced with nitazene.
Nitazenes, also known as benzimidazole-opioids, have no approved medical use. The Drug Enforcement Administration has called nitazenes a “public health threat.”
KTLA noted Narcan, which can save the lives of people who overdose on opioids, isn’t always effective against nitazenes.
“I’m absolutely positive there’s more kids that have died from it,” Andrew said.
Grey McCallister, who lives in the suburbs of Houston, lost her 22-year-old son, Lucci, to nitazenes in January and three months later, his close friend, Hunter, died from the drug, KTLA reported.
“I know of four overdoses in a four-month period just in this tiny boating community of Clearlake,” she told the outlet.
DEA Special Agent in Charge Brian Clark explained how young people across the country are getting their hands on nitazenes.
“What we’re seeing are local drug traffickers that are ordering the chemical directly from chemical companies and pharmaceutical companies in China and internationally through the dark web, and they are adding it to the supply chain in their local areas,” Clark told KTLA.
Deaths from nitazenes add to the opioid overdose epidemic plaguing Americans.
In 2023, about 105,000 people died from drug overdoses, and roughly 76 percent of those deaths involved opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The number of people who died from an opioid overdose in 2023 was almost 10 times the number in 1999, but the death rate did drop four percent from 2022, the CDC says.
