What are nitazenes? Newly Banned Drugs in Ohio

Watch an earlier report on the Ohio governor’s order to reschedule xylazine, a pain reliever also linked to overdose deaths in the state, in the video player above.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – An executive order signed Tuesday by Gov. Mike DeWine has banned a group of drugs developed decades ago.

The executive order targeted a group of nine synthetic opioids known as nitazenes. The drugs were created as potential alternatives to the pain reliever morphine, but were never approved for medical use, according to DeWine’s office. The nine drugs are usually more powerful than heroin or fentanyl and can be deadly.

In 2020, the Ohio Department of Health recorded three nitazene-related overdoses, followed by an average of 57 deaths involving them in 2021 and 2022. While the agency has not finished compiling numbers for 2023, it has confirmed 77 deaths associated with nitazenes. away, according to DeWine’s office.

The following synthetic opioids fall under the umbrella of nitazenes:

• N-Pyrrolidino metonitazene
• N-Pyrrolidino protonitazene
• Ethyleneoxynitazene
• N-Desethyl isotonitazene
• 5-Methyl etodesnitazene
• 3′, 4′-Methylenedioxynitazene
• N-Pyrrolidino Isotonitazene
• Ethylene etonitase
• N-Desethyl etonitazene

The governor’s office said the batch of drugs was found in Ohio, prompting the emergency ban. An “early detection process” by the Ohio Narcotics Intelligence Center picked up on their presence by reviewing reports from the state’s criminal justice system and forensics labs.

“These are extremely dangerous substances that are being engineered by clandestine chemists in an attempt to circumvent the law by keeping them highly addictive,” DeWine said.

Nitazens can be mixed with other opioids such as fentanyl, or stimulants such as cocaine and methamphetamine, according to the governor’s office. As with other opioids, an overdose involving a nitazene compound can be reversed with naloxone.

The nine synthetic opioids join eight others, as well as the veterinary sedative xylazine, previously banned in Ohio starting in 2020. DeWine also signaled interest in banning “intoxicating hemp” — commonly known in products like Delta-8 — — in early 2024. But instead of another executive order, he asked lawmakers in the Ohio State House to pass restrictions on cannabis-related products. As of Wednesday, in Ohio’s first full year of legal recreational marijuana, no action has been taken against hemp.