The Drug You've Never Heard of Wreaking Havoc Across Europe

Summary

The Journal: The Drug You've Never Heard of Wreaking Havoc Across Europe

Episode Release Date: August 12, 2025
Hosts: Ryan Knutson and Jessica Mendoza
Produced by: The Wall Street Journal & Spotify Studios

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Introduction: A Silent Crisis Unveiled

In this eye-opening episode of The Journal, hosts Jessica Mendoza and Suna Rasmussen delve into the alarming rise of a synthetic opioid named nitizines, a drug so potent that it surpasses the notorious fentanyl. Unlike fentanyl, nitizines have never been approved for medical use, and their emergence is causing a surge in overdose deaths across Europe.

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Understanding Nitizines: A More Potent Threat

Jessica Mendoza introduces nitizines, emphasizing their deadly potency:

"It's an opioid called nitizines, a synthetic opioid so potent that this makes fentanyl look weak. And it's been killing hundreds of people." [00:18]

Suna Rasmussen provides a comparison to illustrate the danger:

"Nitizines were developed in the 1950s and they were never approved to market because they were found in trials to cause breathing difficulties." [02:02]

Nitizines are 50 to 250 times more powerful than heroin and up to 15 times stronger than fentanyl [02:26]. The minimal doses required to cause overdoses—as little as half a milligram—make them especially lethal and difficult to detect.

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The European Surge: An Emerging Epidemic

Unlike the United States, which has battled a long-standing opioid crisis, Europe had largely evaded such widespread issues—until now. Nitizines have infiltrated European drug markets, leading to a significant increase in overdose deaths.

Suna Rasmussen highlights the scale:

"In Estonia, nearly half of all drug-induced deaths since 2023 involved nitizines." [03:41]

The UK has also been heavily impacted, with at least 400 deaths reported over 18 months up to January of the current year [04:09]. Importantly, these figures are likely underestimates due to limited testing and awareness about nitizines.

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Personal Tragedies: The Human Cost

The episode brings a personal dimension to the crisis through the story of Ann Jacques, a mother from Wales whose 23-year-old son, Alex Harpham, died from a nitizine-contaminated Xanax pill [04:36].

Jessica Mendoza narrates:

"Her son, Alex Harpham, was a college student and rising opera singer... the police found out that the Xanax Harpham took had come from the black market." [05:32]

Initially, authorities misattributed his death to Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, but Ann's persistent research uncovered the presence of nitizines, revealing the grim reality of the contamination [05:51].

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Cutting the Supply Chain: How Nitizines Spread

Nitizines are primarily synthesized in China and distributed through online marketplaces. Suna Rasmussen's investigation revealed the ease with which nitizines can be procured:

"I just typed into the search bar, typed in a couple of different types of nitazines... I got 88 different ads for this." [11:31]

Using a bot, Suna engaged with suppliers on platforms like TradeKey, illustrating the brazen nature of these transactions:

"We offer door to door delivery with double customs clearance and tax included." [10:42]

Despite TradeKey's zero-tolerance policy and subsequent removal of these ads, the prevalence of suppliers indicates a robust and adaptable distribution network [11:56].

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Motivations Behind the Surge: Profit and Adaptation

Drug suppliers are motivated by the high potency and low cost of nitizines, maximizing profits by cutting them into heroin and other drugs.

Suna Rasmussen explains:

"Drug suppliers are experimenting with nitizines to achieve an effect that mimics the drugs at a lower cost, maybe even give people a stronger high at a lower cost." [07:16]

The crackdown on fentanyl precursors in China has likely pushed suppliers to pivot towards nitizines, seeking new markets in Europe [14:32]. The ability to slightly alter synthetic opioids allows these drugs to evade regulatory controls, perpetuating their spread [15:12].

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Government and Public Health Responses

European governments are grappling with the nitizine crisis. The UK government has issued stern warnings about the dangers of drug use in light of nitizines, labeling it as the most significant public health risk since the AIDS pandemic of the 1980s [09:10].

A director from a British drug treatment organization emphasized the unprecedented threat posed by nitizines, underscoring the urgent need for effective intervention strategies [09:40].

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Future Implications: A Cautious Outlook

While Europe faces a concerning rise in nitizine-related deaths, the United States remains vigilant. However, Suna Rasmussen advises against panic in the U.S., noting the country's already saturated fentanyl market and ongoing efforts in harm reduction:

"Better harm reduction, better access to treatment, better access to naloxone... American authorities are watching this to see if that's going to happen." [16:05]

The adaptability of drug traffickers suggests that nitizines could eventually find their way into the U.S., but current measures may help mitigate this risk.

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Conclusion: A Call for Vigilance and Action

The emergence of nitizines represents a significant and evolving threat to public health across Europe. As The Journal episode highlights, the combination of high potency, ease of distribution, and adaptability of suppliers necessitates a robust and coordinated response from governments, health professionals, and communities to prevent a potential opioid epidemic in Europe similar to that of the United States.

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Additional reporting in this episode by Ming Lee.

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

There's a drug that's fueling a growing crisis of overdose deaths and it's not fentanyl. A new substance is emerging in illicit drug markets.

[Suna Rasmussen]

It's the most deadly drug you've probably never heard of.

[Jessica Mendoza]

It's an opioid called nidazines, a synthetic opioid so potent that this makes fentanyl look weak. And it's been killing hundreds of people.

[Ann Jacques]

Super strength synthetic opioid drugs linked to.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Hundreds of death have been found in.

[Ann Jacques]

Samples of fake medicines sold online.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The drug has led to deaths and overdoses all over the world, from West Africa to Australia, even some in the us but it's had the most impact in Europe.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Europe for a long time has kind of evaded the type of opioid crisis that has hit the US and that the US has been suffering under for three decades now.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's our colleague Suna Rasmussen, who covers security and organized crime.

[Suna Rasmussen]

And once these nitrogens started hitting the streets of Europe and overdoses just shot up in those countries and those communities where they landed, I think a lot of people watching this stuff was concerned about whether this might be Europe's opioid moment.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica mendoza. It's Tuesday, August 12th. Coming up on the show, the drug you've never heard of that's wreaking havoc across Europe, nitizines are a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. But unlike fentanyl, nitizines have never been approved for medical use.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Nitizines were developed in the 1950s and they were never approved to market because they were found in trials to cause breathing difficulties. And that's maybe the main difference between nitazines and fentanyl, at least to understand so why nitzazines, we only see them now, is that fentanyl does have a medical usage. You can get fentanyl on prescription, in patches, for example.

[Jessica Mendoza]

As a synthetic opioid. Netizens are made in labs today, mostly labs in China, but it's much more powerful than other opioids. 50 to 250 times more powerful than heroin and up to 15 times stronger than fentanyl.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Let's try and visualize the amount of these drugs that are required for an overdose in what we call an opioid. Naive person. That would be you and me. People I assume don't have like a sort of regular opioid habit, adult of normal size. So around 30 milligrams of heroin would usually be a potentially lethal dose. That amount of heroin takes up the size of the head of a matchstick.

[Jessica Mendoza]

For fentanyl, just 2 milligrams can cause an overdose. For nitizines, it takes an even smaller amount.

[Suna Rasmussen]

The most common street nitazines in Europe at the moment, you'd only require 1 milligram, maybe only half a milligram, to potentially overdose. We're talking, you know, a few grains of table salt. That's the amount. So incredibly small, vanishingly small amounts.

[Jessica Mendoza]

It's not something that you can really identify just by sight.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yeah, it's basically trace amounts.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In 2019, Nitizine started showing up in drug seizures in Europe and authorities took notice. Since then, hundreds have died from fatal overdoses. Countries where heroin already has a significant foothold have been particularly vulnerable, like Estonia, where nearly half of all drug induced deaths since 2023 involved nitizines. In the UK, during a period of over 18 months, until January of this year, at least 400 people died.

[Suna Rasmussen]

That's a lot of people in a country the size of the uk. And we should also say that those numbers are likely underestimates because testing for nitazines is so limited, because people aren't really aware of them. A lot of documentation of nitazines relies on self reporting. These numbers are likely underestimates.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Have you talked to anyone who knows someone who died from the effects of Netizenes?

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yeah, I spoke to Ann Jacques, who is a mother who lives in Wales and who in the summer of 2023 was woken up when police knocked her door and told her that her 23 year old son had died in his sleep in student accommodation in London.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Her son, Alex Harpham, was a college student and rising opera singer. Here he is in a video he posted to YouTube. His mother said that he was healthy. In an interview with the BBC, she said that he occasionally took Xanax to help him sleep. He was always having trouble sleeping and this had got worse with his ADHD medication and, and my hunch is he probably bought them to calm himself down and try and get some sleep, I think. But the police found out that the Xanax Harpham took had come from the black market.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Xanax is not that easy to get in the uk, so people will often buy them illicitly from drug dealers.

[Jessica Mendoza]

At first, authorities didn't think the black market Xanax was related to what happened. They attributed Harpam's death to something called Sudden Adult death syndrome, a type of heart. But Harpham's mom didn't buy that.

[Suna Rasmussen]

She's a medical professional herself and she consulted with friends and they recommended that she do some research into drug contaminants. And then she came across nitizines and specifically asked the coroner to test the tablets in her son's room for nitazines. And then they came back months after his death and confirmed that there had been nitazines in the Xanax pills.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So she essentially had to do her own research to be able to find out that that was the actual.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yeah, she told me she basically had to investigate her own son's death. Yeah. But this is something that really concerns health professionals here in the UK is that one thing is that nitazines are in the heroin supply. Cause that's sort of the most, I guess, obvious place where it would be, and it's maybe a bit more predictable. But if it also. If it's also circulating and if it's also contaminating the supply of much more harmless medication, really, Valium and Xanax, that poses a whole other level of threat.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Most of the overdoses from nidazines happen to people unaware they were even taking the drug. And that's because nidazines are cut into other drugs, most commonly heroin. But it's also been found in popular party drugs like cocaine, ketamine and ecstasy, or, like in Harpham's case, Xanax, if they're so potent and so deadly. Why would drug dealers cut nitozetins into drugs in the first place?

[Suna Rasmussen]

It kind of depends on maybe what kind of drugs they're found in. Like, mostly nitizines are found in heroin. And I think the reasoning there would be that you try to cut heroin with a contaminant that gives, you know, a similar effect to heroin, but it's much more cost effective, and if you get the dose right, you can increase your profits. And maybe. I think. So the theory that people go by now is drug suppliers are experimenting with nitizines to see how they can achieve an effect that mimics the drugs at a lower cost, maybe even sort of give people a stronger high at a lower cost. That's at least the assessment from British law enforcement is that this is pure greed and drug suppliers are trying to maximize profits.

[Jessica Mendoza]

This kind of opioid crisis hasn't ravaged Europe the way it has the U.S. and there's a reason for that.

[Suna Rasmussen]

The U.S. has suffered from this opioid epidemic since the 1990s, basically. And there's two big waves of opioids that have hit the U.S. the first was in the 1990s and it was fueled by aggressive marketing and private prescriptions of synthetic opioids. And European medical practices are different. So you can't get synthetic opioids prescribed in Europe in the same way that you can in the U.S. like oxy.

[Jessica Mendoza]

You wouldn't be able to get that prescribed there.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yes, exactly. Loxacontin was the big one in the US and then in the 2010s, the second wave hit the US and that was fentanyl specifically. And that was because Mexican cartels began funneling fentanyl into the us so those are the two big events.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Since Europe didn't have oxycontin or fentanyl circulating in its drug market, nidazines have filled a hole for synthetic opioids. What have European governments said or done About NIDazines?

[Suna Rasmussen]

The UK government has said that this is the most dangerous time ever to take drugs, and that's partly because of nitazines. I spoke to a director of a British drug treatment organization here in the UK and she said that nitizines pose the biggest public health risk to British drug users since the AIDS pandemic in the 1980s. So that's putting into perspective how serious people are taking this.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So we've talked about where nitizines are coming from. We've talked about sort of the causes of why it's surging in Europe right now. But how are netizenes getting into Europe?

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yeah, so nitazines, interestingly, nitazines are not that difficult to get a hold of, it appears, and they're not that difficult to source.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Just how easy it is to get netizenes. That's next for this story. Our colleague Suna texted a number of nitizine suppliers. I asked him to read out one of those exchanges.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Hello, can you send nitizines to Europe?

[Ann Jacques]

Hello, friend. Yes, how much do you need?

[Jessica Mendoza]

We used a bot to voice the supplier. Suna was texting to the UK as well.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Can you clear customs?

[Ann Jacques]

Yes, we can ship to the uk. We offer door to door delivery with double customs clearance and tax included.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Suna found the supplier online.

[Suna Rasmussen]

What's the max quantity you can send?

[Ann Jacques]

It depends on your needs. We use disguise packaging, which is very safe. Large quantities can be shipped kilos.

[Jessica Mendoza]

After Suna sent that last message, the person on the other end responded with a picture of two boxes and filled with bags of cat food. The presumption is that they were filled with nitizines. Suna found this person on a site called TradeKey, an online marketplace based in Pakistan. Usually businesses use it to import or export things like furniture and appliances between different countries. But Suna learned it was really easy to find nitizines on the site, too.

[Suna Rasmussen]

I just typed into the search bar, typed in a couple of different types of nitazines. I typed in Proto nitazines and Isoto nitazines. And then I got, like, the first time around, I got 88 different ads for this.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Wow.

[Suna Rasmussen]

And they come complete with phone numbers for WhatsApp or Signal Telegram, sometimes even an email. And then you just. I just started texting them and most people got back to me.

[Jessica Mendoza]

TradeKey said it has a zero tolerance policy toward the sale of opioids on its site and has added nitizines to its registry of banned products. And since soon his story was published, those ads he found have been removed. In his conversation with a drug supplier, Suna tried to learn more about how they were justifying their business.

[Suna Rasmussen]

I'm a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, and I reached out to you because I'm writing a story about nitizines. Would you mind if I asked you a few additional questions?

[Ann Jacques]

Okay.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Nitizines are a highly potent and dangerous type of opioid. It's killed hundreds of people in Europe. Do you have any reservations about selling these drugs given how dangerous they are?

[Ann Jacques]

We are a legitimate manufacturer and only work with licensed pharmaceutical companies. The dangers you mentioned are the results of misuse and abuse by individuals, not the product itself. This question shouldn't be directed at me. You should be asking how your own country is managing this issue. Why can't your own country control the misuse of drugs?

[Suna Rasmussen]

Is this a little bit sort of boilerplate drug supplier?

[Jessica Mendoza]

Is that typically what they say? I mean, Suna, I don't engage in text messages with drug suppliers very often, I gotta be honest with you.

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yeah. I mean, it's just shifting blame, right? I mean, when I used to report from Afghanistan, I would sometimes go to poppy fields in Helmand and report on the poppy trade there. And I've also spoken to Taliban fighters and later Taliban officials, and they would say sort of similar things, right? They would say, well, if there wasn't a demand in Europe, there wouldn't be a market for us. So, I mean, they're not wrong. Right. But also, it doesn't absolve them of responsibility, obviously.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And I mean, the other thing about the exchange was that the person didn't sound like they were worried about getting caught. It was very straightforward and like here's how we're going to do it. We offer door to door delivery is really interesting. So I don't know, what do you make of that?

[Suna Rasmussen]

Yeah, no, totally. Like it was very brazen and also like there's nothing preceding that. Like they didn't ask who I was, they didn't ask for reference from a trusted customer or anything like that. Just straight in offering to send it to scenes to Europe. And I think that is kind of evidence of they work with impunity. And I just took that as a sign that they weren't really worried about law enforcement clamping down on them.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The people that Soona was texting had phone numbers from Hong Kong or mainland China. China is where most ingredients for nitosines come from, just like fentanyl. Recently, China has cracked down on fentanyl producers as part of trade negotiations with the U.S. as a result, sooner says many drug suppliers in China could be turning to Europe to find a new market.

[Suna Rasmussen]

That's one going theory at least. We should caveat this by saying that this is still such a, we're still in the beginning of this wave of nicins hitting Europe. So law enforcement is still grappling with what's going on and the causes of it. But yes, one theory is that because China has cracked down on precursors for fentanyl, suppliers might be pivoting into nitazines instead and then sending it into Europe. So that is one ongoing theory. And I think this speaks to like the ability of drug suppliers to adapt to various restrictions that they might face in a changing drug market.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And while China has regulated certain kinds of nitazines, it hasn't been able to ban all of them.

[Suna Rasmussen]

And that's because if you just tweak the formula of a synthetic opioid a little bit, it kind of evades these controls.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So what have you learned as you've reported about the rise of this new drug?

[Suna Rasmussen]

As a European sitting in Europe, I think, you know, we for decades looked at the US and saw how synthetic opioids ravaged America. And Europe never really had this kind of problem. And I and the other people, the other few people who follow nitazine watching to see whether this is Europe's opioid moment. I guess we'll see now how vulnerable Europe really is to a big opioid epidemic and how serious the influx of opioids will be.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Do you think they could proliferate more here in the us?

[Suna Rasmussen]

I don't think our American listeners should go into panic mode just yet. Like the American market is already, to put it bluntly, like it's already saturated with fentanyl. There has been rare good news on the fentanyl front in the US in recent months. Like number of overdose deaths has declined. I think the main reason for that is better harm reduction, better access to treatment, better access to naloxone, this antidote that you can administer, better information. But part of it could also be that China has sort of squeezed the supplies of precursors for fentanyl. But drug traffickers and organized gangs, they are very good at adapting. And nitazines could be a way that they could adapt. And American authorities are watching this to see if that's going to happen.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's all for today. Tuesday, August 12th. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Ming Lee. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.