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.
There have been no migrant arrivals in small boats crossing the Channel for 28 days, according to Home Office figures.
The last recorded arrivals were on 14 November, making it the longest uninterrupted run since autumn 2018 after no reported arrivals on Friday.
However, a number of Border Force vessels were active in the English Channel on Saturday morning, indicating that there may be arrivals today.
So far, 39,292 people have crossed to the UK aboard small boats this year – already more than any other year except 2022.
The record that year was set at 45,774 arrivals.
It comes as the government has stepped up efforts in recent months to deter people from risking their lives crossing the Channel – but measures are not expected to have an impact until next year.
Debris of a small boat used by people thought to be migrants to cross the Channel lays amongst the sand dunes in Gravelines, France. Pic: PA
December is normally one of the quietest for Channel crossings, with a combination of poor visibility, low temperatures, less daylight and stormy weather making the perilous journey more difficult.
The most arrivals recorded in the month of December is 3,254, in 2024.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy met with ministers from other European countries this week as discussions over possible reform to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) continue.
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France agrees to start intercepting small boats
The issue of small boat arrivals – a very small percentage of overall UK immigration – has become a salient issue in British politics in recent years.
Last month, French maritime police announced they would soon be able to intercept boats in the English Channel.
The King has shared in a television address that, thanks to early diagnosis, his cancer treatment can be reduced in the new year.
In a televised address, Charles said his “good news” was “thanks to early diagnosis, effective intervention and adherence to doctors’ orders”.
“This milestone is both a personal blessing and a testimony to the remarkable advances that have been made in cancer care in recent years,” he added.
“Testimony that I hope may give encouragement to the 50% of us who will be diagnosed with the illness at some point in our lives.”
The King announced in February 2024 that he had been diagnosed with cancer and was beginning treatment.
The monarch postponed all public-facing engagements, but continued with his duties as head of state behind palace walls, conducting audiences and Privy Council meetings.
He returned to public duties in April last year and visited University College Hospital Macmillan Cancer Centre in central London with the Queen and discussed his “shock” at being diagnosed when he spoke to a fellow cancer patient.
Sources suggested last December his treatment would continue in 2025 and was “moving in a positive direction”.
The King began returning to public duties in April last year. File pic: PA
The King has chosen not to reveal what kind of cancer he has been treated for. Palace sources have partly put that down to the fact that he doesn’t want one type of cancer to appear more significant or attract more attention than others.
In a statement after the speech aired, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said: “His Majesty has responded exceptionally well to treatment and his doctors advise that ongoing measures will now move into a precautionary phase.”
Sir Keir Starmer praised the video message as “a powerful message,” and said: “I know I speak for the entire country when I say how glad I am that his cancer treatment will be reduced in the new year.
“Early cancer screening saves lives.”
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Watch: King Charles gives update on treatment
Early detection can give ‘the precious gift of hope’
His message on Friday was broadcast at 8pm in support of Stand Up To Cancer, a joint campaign by Cancer Research UK and Channel 4.
In an appeal to people to get screened for the disease early, the King said: “I know from my own experience that a cancer diagnosis can feel overwhelming.
“Yet I also know that early detection is the key that can transform treatment journeys, giving invaluable time to medical teams – and, to their patients, the precious gift of hope. These are gifts we can all help deliver.”
Charles noted that “at least nine million people in our country are not up to date with the cancer screenings available to them,” adding: “That is at least nine million opportunities for early diagnosis being missed.
“The statistics speak with stark clarity. To take just one example: When bowel cancer is caught at the earliest stage, around nine in ten people survive for at least five years.
“When diagnosed late, that falls to just one in ten. Early diagnosis quite simply saves lives.”
Minor inconvenience of screening ‘a small price to pay’
The King acknowledged that people often avoid screening “because they imagine it may be frightening, embarrassing or uncomfortable”. But, he added: “If and when they do finally take up their invitation, they are glad they took part.
“A few moments of minor inconvenience are a small price to pay for the reassurance that comes for most people when they are either told either they don’t need further tests, or, for some, are given the chance to enable early detection, with the life-saving intervention that can follow.”
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Giving his “most heartfelt thanks” to doctors, nurses, researchers and charity workers, the King added: “As I have observed before, the darkest moments of illness can be illuminated by the greatest compassion. But compassion must be paired with action.
“This December, as we gather to reflect on the year past, I pray that we can each pledge, as part of our resolutions for the year ahead, to play our part in helping to catch cancer early.
“Your life – or the life of someone you love – may depend upon it.”
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