By STEPHEN M. LEPORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 23:52 EST, 25 February 2023 | UPDATED: 00:33 EST, 26 February 2023
Florida’s Attorney General is warning people about a ‘Frankenstein’ opioid that is allegedly 40 times as potent as fentanyl and is already spreading across America.
Ashley Moody, a Republican, wants the state to pass a law to add the drug, officially known as ‘nitazene compounds,’ to the list of Schedule I controlled substances.
The legislation would signal that the opioids have zero acceptable medical use and have a high risk for abuse.
The state claims it’s been finding the compounds since at least 2020 and recorded over 140 findings of them in 2022.
‘Last year, I signed an emergency rule temporarily adding these deadly nitazene compounds to the Schedule I controlled substance list,’ said Moody.
Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody (pictured) is warning people about a ‘Frankenstein’ opioid that is allegedly 40 times as potent as fentanyl and is already spreading across America
Ashley Moody, a Republican, wants the state to pass a law to add the drug, officially known as ‘nitazene compounds’ to the list of Schedule I controlled substances
‘I am proud to announce my support for SB 736, which will permanently add these incredibly deadly drugs to the Schedule I list,’ she told Fox News earlier this week.
Moody is pushing the message that ‘one pill will kill’ and could harm anyone of any age that ingests them.
So far, in the first six weeks of 2023 alone, they have found the Frankenstein opioid 34 times in the Sunshine State.
Nitazene compounds have been discovered inside fake pills and have been offered as liquids or powders.
They are often, as their name suggests, used in combination with fentanyl, cocaine and heroin.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost was the first state-level figure speaking out about the compounds and the first to put out that they could be 40 times as powerful as fentanyl.
‘Frankenstein opioids are even more lethal than the drugs already responsible for so many overdose deaths,’ Yost said last year. ‘Law enforcement and the public need to pay attention to these emerging hazards.’
The drugs have reportedly been found everywhere from San Francisco to areas of the mid-Atlantic, as Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares confirmed finding them in his state.
Moody is pushing the message that ‘one pill will kill’ and could harm anyone of any age that ingests them
So far, in the first six weeks of 2023 alone, they have found the Frankenstein opioid 34 times in the Sunshine State
‘It’s no secret that the opioid epidemic has destroyed communities nationwide – including many Virginia localities. ‘Frankenstein’ opioids, which are even more powerful than the incredibly lethal and potent fentanyl, are the newest variation and are guaranteed to have a devastating effect on Virginians if we do not take swift and decisive action,’ Miyares said.
Miyares is one of 21 attorneys general asking President Joe Biden to declare drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2022, the number of overdose deaths in the U.S. reached 108,000 people.
The US is in the midst of a catastrophic fentanyl epidemic that is causing an eye-watering number of deaths and tearing the fabric of American society apart.
The ultra-strong opioid being cut with virtually every street drug in the country killed a record 75,000 Americans in 2021, the equivalent of 1,500 lives lost every week.
Fentanyl – which is 100 times more potent than morphine – started off as a cheap and potent alternative to heroin and was used by only the most hardcore drug addicts in the US, who mainly injected it or smoked it through a pipe.
But its cheap manufacturing costs and potency have made it the go-to cutting agent for cartels and drug dealers in the US looking to stretch their supply. It’s now found in everything from cocaine to molly and street benzodiazepines like Xanax.
Fentanyl has now infected almost every major city in America, turning once-thriving streets in New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia into wastelands. Scenes of zombified addicts shooting up or smoking the drug in front of children are increasingly becoming a part of everyday life.
The inner city district has long been a magnet for drug users seeking their next high, but the scale of problems caused by xylazine is shocking even to locals who have become accustomed to such distressing scenes
Deaths caused by fentanyl in the US surged in the 2010s. At the start of the decade, 2,666 Americans died of a fentanyl overdose. This figure shot up to 19,413 by 2016. Covid made the situation worse, with a record 72,484 deaths recorded in 2021
The fentanyl crisis has helped fuel the steep drop in American life expectancy in recent years. Americans now live 76.4 years on average, down from 78.8 years in 2019. In the UK, which suffered the Covid pandemic just as the US did, but does not suffer a fentanyl crisis, life expectancy slightly increased from 81.3 years in 2019 to 81.52 in 2021.
Fentanyl is up to 100 times more potent than morphine, one of the most commonly used pain-relievers in the world.
It takes just a small dose of fentanyl to cause an overdose. Just two milligrams – the equivalent of five grains of salt – is enough to cause death.
Because it is cut into other popular drugs, many people who die of overdoses do not know they are taking fentanyl. Fentanyl has been partially blamed for America’s sharp fall in life-expectancy over the past three years.
‘Substance use is more dangerous than it has ever been, as fentanyl has continued to permeate the illicit drug supply, increasing the risk for overdoses among both people with substance use disorders as well as those who use drugs occasionally,’ Dr Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said last month.
Experts have described the drop in life expectancy from 78.8 in 2019 to 76.4 in 2021 as ‘dramatic’ and ‘substantial’.
Officials in Washington state say they run out of space in morgues and crematoriums as the drug tears through local communities.
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