US and European authorities are battling a new enemy in the war against opioids. Nitazenes are a class of synthetic drugs 40 times more potent than fentanyl that have caused hundreds of confirmed deaths across Europe and the data-offer-url=”https://www.cureus.com/articles/140595-old-drugs-and-new-challenges-a-narrative-review-of-nitazenes#!/” class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://www.cureus.com/articles/140595-old-drugs-and-new-challenges-a-narrative-review-of-nitazenes#!/"}” href=”https://www.cureus.com/articles/140595-old-drugs-and-new-challenges-a-narrative-review-of-nitazenes#!/” rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank”>US since appearing on the radar of law enforcement agencies in 2019. However, this figure is likely to be a significant undercount.
Nitazenes were data-offer-url=”https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02161116″ class=”external-link” data-event-click=”{"element":"ExternalLink","outgoingURL":"https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02161116"}” href=”https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02161116″ rel=”nofollow noopener” target=”_blank” data-aps-asin=”BF02161116″ data-aps-asc-tag=”w050b-20″>first synthesized in the 1950s by CIBA Aktiengesellschaft, an Austrian chemical company, which created several chemically related…
