Nitazenes: The new synthetic opioids stronger than heroin that are being cut into drugs
Charlotte, not her real name, wanders back and forth with her empty coffee cup held out towards the tide of commuters coming through the barriers.
Rush hour at Whitechapel underground station is the best time of day for the small, frail, 23-year-old to earn enough change to pay for her next hit.
She’s agitated, but for the briefest moment agrees to talk. I ask if any symptoms from her drug use have changed recently. “I’ve got holes in my legs,” she says. “There’s no skin, just holes. It’s painful.”
Synthetic opioids seized by officers. Pic: Met Police
Her legs are bandaged. She says the strange bores in her flesh have only appeared in the last few months and is unsure why.
But drug charity workers are convinced this is a symptom of a terrifying evolution in the drug market – a growing prevalence of dangerous synthetic opioids being cut into drugs like heroin.
The deadliest, nitazenes, are the newest killer on the streets.
“I’m seeing people coughing up blood. I’m seeing people dying,” says crack cocaine user Rory, who we meet in Aldgate in East London.
“Any drug you are buying off the street you’re taking a risk. These people are in it for the money and the purer it is, the less they make – so they are putting other stuff in it.”
Crack cocaine user Rory
The opioid fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and is the primary drug in North America, where synthetic opioids are estimated to have caused 75,000 deaths in the US last year.
Nitazenes have similar properties to fentanyl, but can be up to 300 times stronger than heroin. Only this week, several have been classified as Class A drugs.
First detected in the UK from a sample of white powder found in the back of a taxi in Wakefield in April 2021, nitazenes have since been found in heroin, cannabis, cocaine, in a vape and most prevalently in black market pills sold as the anti-anxiety drug diazepam.
‘Substantial risk of overdose, hospitalisation, and death’
In October, a police raid on a “sophisticated factory” in Waltham Forest recovered approximately 150,000 nitazene tablets, the largest-ever recovered stash of synthetic opioids. Eleven people were arrested.
Detective Superintendent Helen Rance, who is leading the investigation, said: “Synthetic opioids have been detected in batches of heroin found in London and across the UK; they substantially raise the risk of incredibly serious harm to the user and are believed to be linked to a number of deaths.”
Recently, the opioid is thought to have been cut into a batch of drugs in Dublin, causing 57 people to overdose within a few days.
Professor Eamon Keenan, from the Health Safety Executive, said: “These pose a substantial risk of overdose, hospitalisation, and death.”
Meg Jones, director of social justice charity Cranstoun, said: “We are seeing nitazenes pop up in pockets all over the UK and it is incredibly concerning.”
She added: “There are an increasing number of synthetic opioids being detected in drugs that people thought were very different. We need to see government action quickly on this, because we are sleepwalking into what I would deem to be a public health crisis, and we are not prepared for it in the UK at all.”
Action means more testing and provision of drugs that can counter the effects of opioid overdose.
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Outreach worker Abdirahim Hassan, founder of East London community group Coffee Afrik, agrees. He showed me a video of a young woman who appears to have overdosed. She is slumped unconscious on the pavement in Whitechapel.
Outreach worker Abdirahim Hassan
Her body is in the prayer position, her torso flat over her knees, her face pressed against the ground. “She’s just frozen. Her eyes are closed, and people are just walking past,” said Abdirahim. “She’s a young woman, maybe 24, somebody’s daughter.”
Abdirahim said a crackdown on heroin production by the Taliban has successfully stemmed the flow of heroin from Afghanistan which had previously provided 95% of the UK heroin market. That’s led to a boom in the easier to produce, more deadly synthetics.
“What it means is there’s a much higher risk of overdose and death,” he said. “But it’s a cheaper product and more potent so people are in greater crisis and there is not enough testing.”
Birmingham also saw a spike in the detection of nitazenes. Sky News was given access to a unique project in West Midlands police cells, run by the charity Cranstoun.
Steve Whitby is a drug and alcohol worker who visits suspects in their cells. The idea is that drug rehabilitation services reach out to offer support to addicts while they are in police custody.
Drug and alcohol worker Steve Whitby is interviewed by Farrell
On one cell visit, Steve warns an addict, who is also a suspected shoplifter, about the dangers of nitazenes. He told him: “So these are synthetic drugs that dealers are putting into heroin – but it’s causing lots of people to die from overdose.”
He told the man he shouldn’t take drugs alone and that he will leave a kit with his belongings which includes two syringes of naloxone, an antidote of opioid overdose. He explained the man will have to teach whoever is with him how to use it.
Naxolone is a treatment for people who have overdosed
This pilot in Birmingham is believed to be the first time naloxone has been given to addicts in custody, and the charity said this needs to become a national provision.
The Cranstoun programme in police custody suites is funded by the West Midlands police and crime commissioner.
“In essence, this saves more lives than any other intervention,” said Steve as he demonstrated how to inject the clear liquid into the side of the thigh.
He said sometimes it’s dispensed to the children of addicts so they can save their parents lives if they overdose.
As such a newcomer to the UK market and often concealed as something else, there is little data about the prevalence of nitazenes.
Pic: Met Police
The opioid is even more dangerous for those who have never taken it before
However, Wedinos, a service based in Wales where people can send in their drugs anonymously, to get them tested for what they contain, has started to increasingly detect it in other illicit drugs.
They only found nitazenes five times in 2021, but have discovered it 57 times so far this year. It was in what users thought was cannabis in Manchester and cannabis vape liquid in Portsmouth.
They’ve been found most often in what users thought were the black market versions of the anti-anxiety drug diazepam, and pain medication oxycodone, 21 times each.
They are even more dangerous to people who don’t already use opioids, and therefore have no tolerance.
The reported side effects include hallucinations, irregular heartbeat, chest pains, nosebleeds, vomiting, memory loss, aggression, and overdose.
Back on the streets of Whitechapel, another heroin addict, called Rebel, sits waiting for her methadone script outside a drug rehabilitation centre.
Drug user Rebel
She said heroin has changed. She hates the synthetics, describing them as a waste of money and said they don’t work, but she agrees that not knowing what she’s using makes life more dangerous. Health workers have run urine tests and warned her of other substances cut into her drugs.
“They text me and tell me something is cut in it – it’s really bad.” Rebel becomes emotional talking about the impact of her addiction. “I’m 60 now. I don’t want to die a junkie,” she said.
This week, 15 new synthetic opioids were categorised as Class A drugs by the government, but that doesn’t make them any easier for drug users to detect.
A dangerous market has become more deadly. Users like Rebel are rolling the dice every day.
An alleged attack by the Manchester Arena bomb plotter on prison officers at a high-security jail “will stick with” those impacted “for the rest of their lives”, a former officer and colleague of the victims has said.
Hashem Abedi is accused of violently assaulting officers at HMP Frankland in Durham last weekend, using hot cooking oil and an improvised, or homemade, weapon.
He was serving his sentence in a separation unit, known as a “jail within a jail”, after being found guilty of 22 counts of murder for helping his brother Salman Abedi carry out a suicide bombing at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017.
The attack has raised fresh questions about the safety of prison staff.
Inmates inside separation units had access to cooking facilities, which has now been suspended.
Abedi was moved back to Belmarsh after the alleged attack
‘It will stick with them for life’
Matthew, who only wants to be referred to by his first name, worked with the officers who were hospitalised following the attack.
“I’ve spoken to ex-colleagues who I’m still friends with,” he told Sky News.
“They’ve not discussed the specifics of the incident, but they’ve said it will stick with them for the rest of their lives.”
Matthew broke down as he described the “obscene” and “ludicrous” levels of violence that staff face inside prison.
He’s worked at a number of different jails.
“I’ve been there when you’re mopping your colleagues’ blood… when you’ve seen a serious assault, and you don’t know if they’re gonna be OK, and then 10 minutes later, you’ve got to get back on with your day, you’ve got to carry on running the regime,” he said.
“It is difficult, and it is awful.”
Matthew worked with the officers who were hospitalised
‘No adequate protection’
There were 10,496 assaults against prison staff in England and Wales in the 12 months to September – a 19% rise on the previous year.
“The reality is there’s no adequate protections for prison staff, and that’s a great frustration,” the general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association union, Steve Gillan, told Sky News.
Having visited HMP Frankland earlier in the week, and spoken to many of the officers who were involved, Mr Gillan described the mood among colleagues as one of “anger, frustration, and sadness”.
The association, which represents prison officers, is calling for a “reset” – and for staff to be given stab-proof vests and tasers in “certain circumstances”.
Read more:
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Steve Gillan
‘The entire system needs to change’
Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she shared “the country’s shock and anger” at the attack.
The government has launched a review that will look at how it was able to happen, and will also consider how separation centres are run.
The Prison Service is also conducting a “snap” review into whether protective body armour should be available to frontline staff.
But ex-officer Matthew said “nobody is ever truly safe” in the prison service, with staff facing “impossible challenges every day”.
“The entire system needs to change,” he added. “From the ground up.”
Unwary travellers returning from the EU risk having their sandwiches and local delicacies, such as cheese, confiscated as they enter the UK.
The luggage in which they are carrying their goodies may also be seized and destroyed – and if Border Force catch them trying to smuggle meat or dairy products without a declaration, they could face criminal charges.
The new jeopardy has come about because last weekend, the government quietly “extended” its “ban on personal meat imports to protect farmers from foot and mouth”.
This may or may not be bureaucratic over-reaction.
It’s certainly just another of the barriers EU and UK authorities are busily throwing up between each other and their citizens – at a time when political leaders keep saying the two sides should be drawing together in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on European trade and security.
Keir Starmer’s been embarking on a reset with European leaders. Pic: Reuters
The ban on bringing back “cattle, sheep, goat, and pig meat, as well as dairy products, from EU countries into Great Britain for personal use” is meant “to protect the health of British livestock, the security of farmers, and the UK’s food security.”
There are bitter memories of previous outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in this country, in 1967 and 2001.
In 2001, there were more than 2,000 confirmed cases of infection resulting in six million sheep and cattle being destroyed. Footpaths were closed across the nation and the general election had to be delayed.
In the EU this year, there have been five cases confirmed in Slovakia and four in Hungary. There was a single outbreak in Germany in January, though Defra, the UK agriculture department, says that’s “no longer significant”.
The UK imposed bans on personal meat and dairy imports from those countries, and Austria, earlier this year.
Authorities carry disinfectant near a farm in Dunakiliti, Hungary. Pic: Reuters
Better safe than sorry?
None of the cases of infection are in the three most popular countries for UK visitors – Spain, France, and Italy – now joining the ban. Places from which travellers are most likely to bring back a bit of cheese, salami, or chorizo.
Could the government be putting on a show to farmers that it’s on their side at the price of the public’s inconvenience, when its own measures on inheritance tax and failure to match lost EU subsidies are really doing the farming community harm?
Many will say it’s better to be safe than sorry, but the question remains whether the ban is proportionate or even well targeted on likely sources of infection.
Read more: The products you can’t bring into Britain from the EU
No more gourmet chorizo brought back from Spain for you. File pic: iStock
A ‘Brexit benefit’? Don’t be fooled
The EU has already introduced emergency measures to contain the disease where it has been found. Several thousand cattle in Hungary and Slovenia have been vaccinated or destroyed.
The UK’s ability to impose the ban is not “a benefit of Brexit”. Member nations including the UK were perfectly able to ban the movement of animals and animal products during the “mad cow disease” outbreak in the 1990s, much to the annoyance of the British government of the day.
Since leaving the EU, England, Scotland and Wales are no longer under EU veterinary regulation.
Northern Ireland still is because of its open border with the Republic. The latest ban does not cover people coming into Northern Ireland, Jersey, Guernsey, or the Isle of Man.
Rather than introducing further red tape of its own, the British government is supposed to be seeking closer “alignment” with the EU on animal and vegetable trade – SPS or “sanitary and phytosanitary” measures, in the jargon.
A ban on cheese? That’s anything but cracking. Pic: iStock
UK can’t shake ties to EU
The reasons for this are obvious and potentially make or break for food producers in this country.
The EU is the recipient of 67% of UK agri-food exports, even though this has declined by more than 5% since Brexit.
The introduction of full, cumbersome, SPS checks has been delayed five times but are due to come in this October. The government estimates the cost to the industry will be £330m, food producers say it will be more like £2bn.
With Brexit, the UK became a “third country” to the EU, just like the US or China or any other nation. The UK’s ties to the European bloc, however, are much greater.
Half of the UK’s imports come from the EU and 41% of its exports go there. The US is the UK’s single largest national trading partner, but still only accounts for around 17% of trade, in or out.
The difference in the statistics for travellers are even starker – 77% of trips abroad from the UK, for business, leisure or personal reasons, are to EU countries. That is 66.7 million visits a year, compared to 4.5 million or 5% to the US.
And that was in 2023, before Donald Trump and JD Vance’s hostile words and actions put foreign visitors off.
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Trump: ‘Europe is free-loading’
More bureaucratic botheration
Meanwhile, the UK and the EU are making travel between them more bothersome for their citizens and businesses.
This October, the EU’s much-delayed EES or Entry Exit System is due to come into force. Every foreigner will be required to provide biometric information – including fingerprints and scans – every time they enter or leave the Schengen area.
From October next year, visitors from countries including the UK will have to be authorised in advance by ETIAS, the European Travel and Authorisation System. Applications will cost seven euros and will be valid for three years.
Since the beginning of this month, European visitors to the UK have been subject to similar reciprocal measures. They must apply for an ETA, an Electronic Travel Authorisation. This lasts for two years or until a passport expires and costs £16.
The days of freedom of movement for people, goods, and services between the UK and its neighbours are long gone.
The British economy has lost out and British citizens and businesses suffer from greater bureaucratic botheration.
Nor has immigration into the UK gone down since leaving the EU. The numbers have actually gone up, with people from Commonwealth countries, including India, Pakistan and Nigeria, more than compensating for EU citizens who used to come and go.
Editor’s note: Hands off my focaccia sandwiches with prosciutto! Pic: iStock
Will European reset pay off?
The government is talking loudly about the possible benefits of a trade “deal” with Trump’s America.
Meanwhile, minister Nick Thomas Symonds and the civil servant Mike Ellam are engaged in low-profile negotiations with Europe – which could be of far greater economic and social significance.
The public will have to wait to see what progress is being made at least until the first-ever EU-UK summit, due to take place on 19 May this year.
Hard-pressed British food producers and travellers – not to mention young people shut out of educational opportunities in Europe – can only hope that Sir Keir Starmer considers their interests as positively as he does sucking up to the Trump administration.
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