U.K. Bans Synthetic Opioids ‘500 Times More Powerful Than Morphine’

The U.K. government has banned 15 synthetic opioids, including one described as “500 times more powerful than morphine.”

The substances are now considered ‘Class A’ drugs and fall under the country’s strictest legal controls. Other drugs in this category include LSD, cocaine and crystal meth, as well as older synthetic opioids like fentanyl.

The maximum penalty for supplying Class A drugs is life in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.

Although certain synthetic opioids can be used legitimately as a medicine, it’s illegal to supply them without a prescription.

The drugs banned today include metonitazene, protonitazene, isotonitazene, butonitazene and flunitazene.

Officials plan to monitor wastewater and record local increases in overdoses to help law enforcement and public health teams mitigate the dangers of the new drugs, concerns over which have been growing in in the U.K.

Just this week, a coroner warned the substances had made their way into prisons in a report designed to prevent future deaths.

Two men — Giuseppe Tabone, 58, and Andrew Evans, 34 — died after inhaling isotonitazene in an East Sussex prison back in June 2022, wrote coroner Michael Spencer.

Although go-to anti-opioid Naxolone was not administered in this case, he expressed concern this life-saving medicine may not be strong enough in its usual dose to combat the potent synthetic drug.

Isotonitazene, he said, was “500 times more powerful than morphine.”

‘England is playing catch up’

Nearly all the drugs banned on Wednesday are nitazenes — a strong category of synthetic opioid.

At least 101 deaths have been linked to nitazenes in the U.K., with 49 potential cases still to be confirmed by tests, according to the BBC.

Officials on Wednesday said the new rules would limit nitazene use in the U.K.

Crime and policing minister Chris Philp said in a statement: “Synthetic opioids are significantly more toxic than heroin and have led to thousands of deaths overseas. We are determined to ensure these destructive and lethal drugs do not take hold in our communities in the U.K.”

Philp and U.S. secretary of state Anthony Blinken pledged for both countries to work together to tackle the drugs at the United Nation’s annual Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna last week.

But Dr Mark Pucci, a senior doctor specialising in clinical toxicology told the BBC that England’s response to the drugs had been slow.

Often added to other drugs like heroin, people may take the drugs without realizing. Dr Pucci, who is researching nitazenes, found traces of the drugs in 19 patients who had taken other substances, in a study he published last month.

None of them knew they had taken nitazenes, awareness of which remains low in the country.

“I believe there are very few National Health Service labs around the country that are set up to test for nitazenes,” said Dr Pucci. “I do believe England is behind the curve on this matter and is now playing catch up. The data collection method they are using in terms of testing drug paraphernalia is only ever going to be the tip of the iceberg.”