A synthetic opioid that’s 43 times stronger than fentanyl and 250 times stronger than heroin has caused hundreds of deaths in the U.K., and has now spread to the U.S.
Nitazenes are behind the deaths of two young men in Texas, who took pills that were laced with the potent drug
Their mothers are speaking out to raise awareness and warn others about the deadly substance
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Experts are warning about a dangerous drug hitting the streets that’s up to 43 times stronger than fentanyl and 250 times stronger than heroin — that’s already killed two young men in Texas.
Nitazenes are synthetic opioids that are produced in China and, like fentanyl, can be found mixed in drugs like heroin and pills. The Wall Street Journal reports the drug is so potent, even trace amounts can be fatal — and it’s already caused at least 400 deaths in the U.K.
But now the drug is stateside: The families of two young Texas men who died from taking pills laced with the drugs are speaking out.
In January, Lucci Reyes-McCallister, 22, died near Houston after taking a pill that he thought was Xanax, his mother, Grey McCallister, told the New York Post, explaining that her son’s pill was laced with a form of nitazene.
Three months later, in April, a friend of Lucci’s, 21-year-old Hunter Clement, died after taking what he believed to be a Percocet. His mother, Ruthi Clement, told the Post she found her son face-down in his bed, his skin purple. Two doses of Narcan didn’t work to revive her son.
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Narcan — the branded name for naloxone — is an emergency medication intended to reverse the effects of a narcotic overdose. But nitazenes are so potent that Narcan isn’t as effective as it is against a heroin overdose, for example.
The reason for the influx of fentanyl, and now nitazenes, is that it’s easier to smuggle in smaller, but more potent drugs, U.K. National Crime Agency Deputy Director Charles Yates told the WSJ. “They buy potent nitazenes cheaply and mix them with bulking agents such as caffeine and paracetamol to strengthen the product being sold and make significant profits,” Yates told the outlet.
Although it’s commonly mixed into pills and powders, a man in Sydney was arrested on Aug. 5 for selling vapes that were “supercharged” with the drug, The Guardian reports. There are 17 different strains circulating in the U.S., the Drug Enforcement Agency reports in the 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment. The drug is so new that it’s not part of routine testing, the WSJ says, but research from 2022 found 93 deaths that were attributable to strains of nitazenes.
N-pyrrolidino etonitazenes are the most potent, up to 43 times stronger than fentanyl, the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission says. N-pyrrolidino protonitazenes — the type that killed Lucci — is 25 times the strength of fentanyl.
Lucci’s death, his mother told the Post, “was the first time I’d ever heard of [nitazene].”
Hunter’s mother shared that she’s speaking out because, “Sometimes I get mad because I couldn’t save my own son. I do want to save other people, even if it’s just one person in honor of him.”
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