Will Isotonitazene Replace Fentanyl on the Black Market?

Jeffrey A. SingerWaging a war on drugs is like playing a game ofWhac ‐​A‐​Mole.In 2005 Congress addressed the “meth crisis” by passing theCombat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act that, among other things, made the popular decongestantSudafed,used by homegrown labs to make meth, a behind ‐​the‐​counter drug and restricted its sale to patients. It didn’t take long for Mexican drug cartels to fill the void created by the crackdown on domestic meth labs, and to findother and better ways to manufacture meth. Now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report methamphetamine ‐​related deaths atrecord high levels.Reacting to the fact that the synthetic opioid fentanyl and its analogs — largely made and smuggled into the U.S. by labs inChina—is responsible for up to 75 percent ofopioid ‐​related deaths, the Trump administration persuaded China to impose a ban on the production of fentanyl and its analogs in April 2019. By the fall of 2019 a new synthetic opioid,isotonitazene, made its debut in U.S. and Canadian black markets. The drug, which is not a derivative of fentanyl but equally as potent, is legal to export from China and is not banned in North America or Europe.In March of this yearVice gave a detailed report on how this synthetic opioid has been found in counterfeit Dilaudid tablets sold on the streets in Nova Scotia, mixed with heroin sold in the U.S., and is sold in underground markets in Euro...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - July 10, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Jeffrey A. Singer Source Type: blogs