The US is “behind the curve” on fighting a deadly new synthetic narcotic that’s dramatically more lethal than fentanyl and resistant to Narcan, a top DEA agent warns.
Just as authorities in the US and China increase efforts to tackle the scourge of fentanyl, the drug manufacturers, who are motivated by “greed,” shifted to start producing nitazenes — an even deadlier poison, said Drug Enforcement Administration Houston Division Special Agent in Charge Jonathan C. Pullen.
The Trump administration has hit Mexico and China with sanctions and tariffs to force the foreign governments to act against illicit drug producers responsible for the poisonings of thousands of Americans each year.
Additionally, with President Trump’s effort to close the southern border, the feds have seen a significant drop in the flow of illicit fentanyl into the US.
But the Chinese pharma companies and cartels have already moved to introduce a new and stronger drug that many authorities are just now learning about, Pullen said.
“I do think we are behind the curve. But that’s been the case with these synthetic opioids — that they shift,” he told The Post.
“And if we get into a place where then we are able to issue controls or China issues more controls on the precursor chemicals that go to these, they’ll just change the analog and it’ll go to another precursor chemical. China’s already done that,” he added.
Nitazenes are produced in China, often with the help of Mexican cartels that finish the product and move it north across the border, according to Pullen.
The potent narcotic can be up to 43 times stronger than fentanyl depending on the formula, according to the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission.
Nitazenes are not included in routine drug tests or toxicology screenings, making them all the more challenging to detect.
While the feds are “making headway” to tackle the new threat, there’s still more work to be done, said Pullen.
“So it’s very very difficult to stay ahead of it, so we’ve got to continue to step up our enforcement along the border,” he said.
“I think that the number of overdose deaths being reduced in the United States is a testament to that. The enforcement is not the only reason its reduced. Naloxone [aka Narcan] is a huge piece too, but we’re definitely making some headway and we’re gonna keep pushing on that.”
There were 80,000 overdose deaths in the US in 2024 — a 27% drop from the 110,000 deaths estimated in 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
While the wider use of Narcan has contributed to the drop in overdose deaths, nitazenes is often resistant to the drug antidote — adding a terrifying new pitfall, Pullen warned.
“It’s incredibly deadly and normal treatment methods like naloxone … don’t work as well on nitazenes because it’s so much stronger,” said Pullen.
“It’s really hard to overcome if you’ve taken one.”
In the Houston-area, there were 15 deaths related to nitazenes and 11 seizures of the drug between November and February, according to the DEA.
Two of the victims were best friends Lucci Reyes-McCallister, 22, and Hunter Clement, 21, who ingested pills marketed as Xanax and Percocet that actually contained N-pyrrolidino protonitazene, a form of nitazenes that is 25 times stronger than fentanyl.
And their mothers are warning America’s youth in the hopes of saving lives.
“They could think something is clean or rather safe when it’s actually pressed for something that’s 20 to 40 times stronger, more deadly than fentanyl,” Lucci’s mother Grey recently told The Post.
“It just really lit a fire under me. There was no way Lucci was going to die in vain,” she added.
The drug was developed 60 years ago as a possible alternative to morphine, but was outlawed for medical use over its high overdose risk.
Authorities in Europe have already seen several overdoses from the synthetic narcotic. It was first detected in the US in 2019.
Last January, a Florida man confessed to distributing protonitazene that he received in mailed shipments from China, according to the IRS.
Customs officers at Kennedy are also seeing the drug coming through the airport “at least a few times a week in quantities ranging from just a few grams to upwards of a pound or more,” Andrew Renna, assistant port director for cargo operations at the airport, said in May.
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