A synthetic opioid more powerful than fentanyl is at the center of a Los Angeles County case that is the first-of-its-kind in the nation. The prosecution, involving a 22-year-old victim, is the first to focus on a death caused by the drug, authorities said.
Protonitazene is three times more potent than fentanyl, according to The Center for Forensic Science Research and Education.
In November, a 21-year-old man pleaded not guilty in federal court in Los Angeles to a single count of distribution of protonitazene resulting in death, court records show. The buyer, a resident of Stevenson Ranch, took the pills as he sat in his car. He died quickly, prosecutors said. His mother later found him dead in the car, parked outside her home.
In 2021, the forensic science center said of protonitazene, “recent association with death among people who use drugs leads professionals to believe this synthetic opioid retains the potential to cause widespread harm and is of public health concern.”
Protonitazene has been described as a designer drug sold over the internet. But drug enforcement agents say it’s still uncommon.
Here are some things to know about it.
1. It is a synthetic opioid.
Protonitazene is in the nitazene class of drugs.
Nitazenes, developed decades ago, were meant to be a substitute for morphine, according to Medical Discovery News, but were so powerful that the FDA didn’t approve them. They’re still illegal, and cheap to produce in a lab. They block pain signals in the brain, binding to opioid receptors in the brain, spinal cord, and elsewhere.
“Basically, it’s, as the name suggests, a synthetic drug made in the laboratory. And it’s intended to mimic the effects of real opioids,” Special Agent Matthew Allen, who heads the LA division of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said in a recent interview.
“It’s used much like fentanyl, as a cutting agent in counterfeit pills, and (we) just haven’t seen as much of it. Fentanyl is still very, very prevalent but, but the protonitazenes and the nitazenes, they’re used the same way,” he said.
2. It is much rarer than other synthetic opioids.
“We don’t really see the nitazenes out here (in Southern California). Even the pills that were used in this case, we’ve tracked to somewhere not in California,” Allen said, referring to the Santa Clarita prosecution.
Though fentanyl and protonitazene are both synthetic opioids, there have been less than 20 seizures of protonitazene across the United States in recent years, according to Allen. The DEA remains focused on fentanyl; The DEA seized over 7,888 pounds of that drug nationwide so far in 2024.
“Being the DEA, we are very concerned with emerging threats, and emerging trends, and it’s certainly something that we’re keeping our eye on, but we’re not seeing enough of it to set off the alarms,” he said. We’re still just seeing so much fentanyl. That is the primary threat, to especially young people.”
3. It is more deadly than fentanyl.
Two milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose and protonitazene is deadlier, so, Allen says, it takes “not very much” at all of the drug to kill. He and others did not put a number on it.
“Unless you are getting something from a doctor or pharmacist, assume it’s fake,” Allen said. “There is no real OxyContin, or Percocet, or Adderall just floating around on the illicit market.
“Unless you get something from a doctor, assume if you are taking a pill you are taking fentanyl, or a small amount of something else like a nitazene.”