Canberra's pill-testing service has issued a red alert and added confirmation to recent police warnings that a very powerful and potentially deadly form of synthetic opioid has been found in the ACT masquerading as oxycodone.
CanTEST's clinical lead David Caldicott said this variant of the synthetic opioid nitazene, known as N-pyrrolidino isotonitazene, had not been seen before in the ACT.
It was surrendered to the pill-testing service late last week and subjected to extensive analysis over the weekend, with the red warning issued by CanTEST Test on Monday.
A CanTEST red warning for a drug is relatively rare and issued when the drug detected has a threat to life.
"This is a potent new opioid that is 1000 times stronger than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl," the warning said.
"The sample was acquired from the dark web (vendor name not disclosed), but this is the third nitazene-related community notice that CanTEST has issued and the second counterfeit oxycodone notice.
"Nitazenes have been detected in several parts of Australia, and in various forms.
"All nitazenes carry a risk of fatal overdose.
"These is no safe way to use them ... [the detected drug] is known to cause an opioid-like overdose with lowered/loss of consciousness, breathing slowly or not at all, tiny/pinpoint pupils, discoloured lips/nails, cold or clammy skin, [plus] choking, coughing, gurgling or snoring noises."
ACT Chief Police Officer Scott Lee last week expressed his concern over the 15 overdose deaths recorded in the ACT so far this year, compared with nine for the full calendar year of 2023.
While the cause of the suspected overdose deaths is still under investigation, police have noted a rise in two specific synthetic opioids of concern, fentanyl and nitazene, in the Canberra community.
In late May, federal police and Border Force issued a joint public warning that more nitazene could be hitting Australian streets.
It was understood there has been at least one overdose death at Canberra's jail in recent weeks, although the drug which caused the death has not been revealed.
Dr Caldicott says police were "absolutely prudent" in discussing the issue openly.
"One of the reasons why we assigned this red warning to this particular product was because there was unknown product causing deaths and that would be consistent with drugs such as this," he said.
"This particular product was masquerading as a therapeutic drug, namely oxycodone, and it's a matter of public record that there's an enthusiasm for oxycodone in the community of people who use drugs like this.
"It's not a particularly good fake, but it's a fake nonetheless."
Naloxone is known to be useful in preventing an overdose nitazene death but multiple doses may be required.
