Nitazenes pose an emerging threat as they are more resistant to naloxone, a medication that can reverse opioid overdoses. They are often mixed with other drugs and delivered in the form of counterfeit pills mimicking drugs such as Xanax or Percocet, according to authorities.
Frank Tarentino, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) New York Division, said that the presence of nitazenes coming from China has been increasingly prevalent on the illicit drug scene.
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“Here in the United States, we have found it in heroin, methamphetamine, in some cases fentanyl, and more alarmingly, we have now seen it pressed into pills,” he said in a Sept. 10 interview with NTD, The Epoch Times’ sister media outlet.
“What we have seen is that these cartels, these transnational criminal organizations that are operating on a global scale, are intentionally lacing their drugs with fentanyl and now nitazenes to increase the high, to increase the addiction, to make more money.”
Tarantino said that traffickers are selling counterfeit prescription drugs such as oxycodone on the streets, online, or on social media. He warned that the only safe place to buy prescription drugs is through a legitimate pharmacy.
Chinese companies and Mexican cartels are turning to nitazenes, a cheap synthetic opioid, particularly as pressure mounts on fentanyl production and distribution.
Some cartels have shifted to nitazenes due to a recent crackdown on fentanyl precursor chemicals coming from China, noted Sally Sparks, a public information officer with the DEA’s Houston Division.
“We are also seeing street-level drug dealers mixing it with the fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine,” she told The Epoch Times via email.
President Donald Trump made tackling the fentanyl crisis a signature issue during his administration, moving to impose tariffs on China and Mexico while declaring Mexican Cartels terrorist organizations to fight the influx of the deadly drug.
Congress passed the HALT Fentanyl Act, which Trump signed into law in July. It permanently classifies fentanyl-related substances as Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act, thus increasing penalties for possession and distribution.
Like fentanyl, nitazene production has been tied to China.
In one instance, nitazenes were allegedly imported into the United States and Mexico by a China-based company and its employees, according to a 2023 U.S. Department of Justice press release announcing eight indictments.
“Drug traffickers typically mix protonitazene and metonitazene with other opioids, such as fentanyl, to create new and more powerful cocktails of dangerous opioids,” the release stated.
Depending on their production methods, these drugs can be up to 50 times stronger than fentanyl and heroin, according to the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission.
Nitazenes were relatively unknown until recently, except for researchers studying opioids. They began showing up as pressure on fentanyl manufacturing and distribution intensified.
This class of drugs was developed in the 1950s and emerged in 2019 on the illicit drug market in Europe before spreading to the United States and beyond.
Dr. Stephen Loyd, director of the Office of Drug Control Policy in West Virginia—the epicenter of the national fentanyl crisis—described nitazenes as an emerging threat, similar to how xylazine, an animal tranquilizer sometimes mixed with fentanyl, was viewed a few years ago.
“The nitazenes are the kind of drug de jure to do that,” Loyd told The Epoch Times, adding they are the “next step” for drug dealers.
Greater amounts of naloxone, which can reverse opioid overdose, have been needed to save people from nitazenes because of their potency, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Drug overdose deaths, mainly attributed to fentanyl, decreased by some 25 percent across the country from February 2024 to January 2025, according to provisional data from the CDC.
However, drug overdose remains the top cause of death for those between 18 and 44 years old, according to Dr. Allison Arwady, director for the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, who spoke at the National Conference of State Legislatures Summit in August.
Loyd noted that the recipes for some of these synthetic opioids, which are cheap to make, are available on the internet and that the only thing drug cartels need to produce them is a skilled chemist.
Most of West Virginia’s overdoses can be attributed to more than one drug, he said. Heroin, for example, likely has fentanyl or nitazenes, he said.
“They blend this … basically in bullet blenders that you get from Walmart,” he added.
Nitazenes have been connected to more than 18,000 fatal and nonfatal EMS encounters for overdose across the country from Jan. 1, 2023, to April 30, 2025, according to the National Drug Early Warning System.
States on the East Coast, such as Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, appear to be particularly hard hit.
But recently, nitazenes have grabbed headlines in states such as Texas.
The DEA Houston Division has seen a spike in the number of fatal drug poisonings related to nitazene, more specifically N-pyrrolidino protonitazene (pyro) during the past 18 months, Sparks said.
Pyro is 25 percent more potent than fentanyl, she added.
Agents have seized drugs laced with nitazenes in Houston, San Antonio, and Austin.
“We’re mainly seizing pills pressed to look like legitimate prescription drugs like hydrocodone and Percocet,” she said.
This year has seen 11 deaths associated with nitazene in the Houston area, Sparks said.
The victims’ ages range between 17 and 59 years old. Also, in rural East Texas, a 16-year-old girl died of a drug overdose in July that authorities suspected was fentanyl, but turned out to be pyro.
Loyd said there will always be a new illicit drug on the horizon. Efforts to stop the cartels are needed, but treating people for addiction is the only real solution.
“You’ve got to treat people and decrease demand. If you don’t do that, the supply will meet the demand 100 percent of the time,” he said.
