Two New Drugs Amplify Additive Problems

A study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week shows that two recently released drugs are contributing to the problem of alcohol abuse in the US and metonitazene. , either in combination with fentanyl or taken alone. The drug is believed to be more potent than fentanyl, but overdose can be reversed with naloxone.

Report, printed Thursday in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, it comes from national data collected from law enforcement and toxicology data from the Knox County Regional Forensic Center (KCRFC) in Tennessee, which operates a wide range of government autopsies.

In November 2020, Tennessee coroners began detecting an overdose involving para-fluorofentanyl; in January 2021, he began to see metonitazene pop up. From 2020 until the beginning of 2021, the drug again became more pronounced in the coma. Although these drugs are usually available with fentanyl or one another, reports of deaths alone have begun to increase over time. Of the 562 people who died of alcohol abuse who were found to be fentanyl reported by KCRFC from November 2020 to August 2021, 48 were affected by para-fluorofentanyl and 26 were also affected by metonitazene. Some countries have done so reports the emergence of these and other new drugs on the market in recent years.

parafluorofentanyl is a fentanyl analogue developed in the 1960s that became popular on the black market until the 1980s, before being listed as a Schedule 1 drug by the federal government. Metonitazene is a group of synthetic drugs known as benzimidazole-opioids. The drug was first developed in the 1950’s but has not been considered a drug due to concerns about its health risks. Para-fluorofentanyl and metonitazene are thought to be injected or injected, and both appear to be more potentially life-threatening than fentanyl, which is already a potent opioid than heroin, according to a report by Darinka Mileusnic-Polchan, head of the Knoxville Medical Center in Tennessee.

“These [victims] just wrinkle and fall. They usually do not inject even the whole syringe ”before drinking, Mileusnic-Polchan he tells and AP.

Because both drugs have opioid properties and often taken with fentanyl, naloxone can completely reverse the most debilitating symptoms such as slow breathing (slowing down or stopping breathing). But CDC reporters complained it would take a high or repetitive dose of naloxone to save the victims. And the combination of these drugs with fentanyl or other drugs “could cause more serious problems for the patient than ever before,” the authors report.

Everywhere, the problem of excessive drinking is getting worse. In 2020, I to compare that more than 100,000 Americans died as a result of alcohol abuse, which in most cases concerned combining fentanyl with other drugs. This increase it happened despite successful efforts to reduce the legal supply of opioids to patients, which has led many experts and patient advocates to question the effectiveness of these programs. Many organizations instead they have asked for greater use of risk reduction strategies, such as increased access to medical care and safer / more injectable / injectable areas. In New York City, where the country’s first official venue opened at the end of last November, an overdose has already taken place. change.