A senior Irish health official said the synthetic opioid nitazene was a drug of concern.Getty Images
The Irish Health Executive (HSE) has announced that a significant increase in synthetic drugs sold on the Irish market led to an unprecedented number of overdoses last year.
“In 2023, Nitazen has emerged as a real drug of concern for HSE addictions,” Professor Eamon Keenan, national clinical lead for HSE addictions services, told RTÉ Morning Ireland this week.
“There were 57 overdoses related to these drugs in Dublin and 17 in Cork.
“We were able to conduct an analysis very quickly and were able to identify the presence of Nitazen and get the message across about harm reduction.
“The biggest characteristic of these drugs is that they are synthetic opioids. They were sold as new heroin or strong heroin.
“However, upon analysis, we found that it did not actually contain heroin, but was instead a drug sold as a mixture of paracetamol and caffeine.
“In some ways we were wondering if dealers were testing the market by introducing this new drug.Of course, we saw unprecedented levels of overdoses in the Dublin area, especially in early November. it was done.”
In November, the HSE issued a “special risk” warning after an overdose in Dublin involved “potent and dangerous synthetic opioids”.
Professor Keenan said the HSE was currently working with coroners in Dublin and Cork to investigate the overdose death to determine if there was a link to synthetic drugs.
“We need toxicology and test results to determine if any drug-related deaths may have occurred during that period, and they prioritized those.”
The HSE said increasing amounts of synthetic drugs were also causing a surge in people seeking help from mental health services.
Professor Keenan pointed out that Nitazen’s popularity soared after heroin production fell by 95% in Afghanistan following a crackdown by the Taliban.
He said since the Taliban crackdown, drug dealers are considering “new and novel ways” to sell drugs to people.
Professor Keenan said Nitazene, which is on the Irish market, is up to 15 times more potent than fentanyl, which is a significant problem in the US, and 20 to 40 times more potent than heroin.
“We’ve seen the identification of nitazene drugs, which are actually more potent…so our concern is that all the talk about fentanyl is distracting people. That is,” Professor Keenan told RTÉ.
The HSE says Nitazen affects the body’s systems very quickly, causing some people to collapse almost immediately.
To combat the rise in overdoses, the HSE has increased the availability of the prescription drug Naxolene, which helps reverse some of the effects of heroin and synthetic opioid overdoses.
“What we find with naloxone and Nitazene is that you probably need an additional dose of naloxone, or maybe two doses of naloxone, to create a reaction and get you out of an overdose.”
The HSE has announced that 6,500 units of naxolene will be available in 2023, and early reports indicate it was used more than 200 times before the spike in overdoses in November. Subsequently, following a spike in overdoses, the HSE launched an awareness campaign about the importance of naxolene. This means that overall usage is likely to increase further in 2023.