COLUMBUS – Ohio’s top law enforcement official is sounding a warning about “Frankenstein opioids,” a group of dangerous synthetic opioids that have become more prevalent in the state.
The drugs, classified as nitazenes, can be up to 40 times more potent than fentanyl, according to a bulletin to law enforcement agencies and first responders recently issued by Attorney General Dave Yost’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
In the first quarter of 2022, the state says the number of nitazene cases in Ohio quadrupled compared with the same period in 2021.
The BCI bulletin says that nitazene compounds, from a drug class known as benzimidazole-opioids, were originally synthesized in the 1950s to research their analgesic effects.
They are not approved for medical use anywhere in the world but are currently being made in clandestine labs, Yost said.
WARNING: Ohio seeing increased levels of nitazene, a lab-created opioid that can be 1.5 to 40 times more potent than fentanyl.
“Frankenstein opioids are even more lethal than the drugs already responsible for so many overdose deaths,” AG Yost said. pic.twitter.com/oGNukZGizV— Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost (@OhioAG) April 20, 2022
In the first quarter of 2022, BCI reported 143 nitazene cases in Ohio, up from 27 cases in the same quarter of 2021.
In some instances, nitazenes are being found in combination with other drugs, primarily fentanyl and fentanyl pharmacophores but also tramadol, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine and PCP analogs, Yost’s office advised.