Fentanyl& Nitazenes: on the illegal drug market

Both Fentanyl and nitazenes were originally developed for medical purposes. Fentanyl was approved in 1960 as an analgesic (painkiller). Its purpose was to relief pain after surgery and related to severe medical conditions.

Nitazenes were developed around the same time as an alternative to morphine. They hoped to create a substance with less addiction potential and fewer side effects. However, the nitazenes were never released as a medicine due to exceptionally high potency and risk of overdose.

In the 1990s, American doctors started to prescribe synthetic opioids like oxycodon as safe and harmless. Contrary to what they were told by pharmaceutical industry, these substance were not as harmless as advertised and many people became dependent on these painkillers.

In the 2000’ many people that had become dependent on synthetic opioids switched to heroin when their doctors no longer prescribed them the synthetic opioids or when people lost their medical insurance. Heroin was often cheaper and easier to get.

By 2010, opioid overdoses started to peak, which caused the US government to reinforce more strict regulations around the prescription and availability of synthetic opioids. Despite these measures, the demand persisted and soon the synthetic opioids started to flood into the illegal drug markets.

Around 2013, dealers started mixing fentanyl into heroin or sold it as pills marketed as Oxicontin or Xanax (medically prescribed opioid pills)

Its high potency makes fentanyl attractive for drug dealers: very small amounts are needed for an effect so huge profits can be made.

After fentanyl overdoses spiked, tougher U S controls pushed traffickers toward nitazenes—equally or even more powerful opioids that are cheap, easy to hide, and effective in micro-doses. Because these drugs are new, most countries have yet to regulate them strictly, making nitazenes a lucrative substitute in heroin and counterfeit painkillers.

In Europe, illicit fentanyl first surged in the mid-2010s—smuggled via darknet/mail as counterfeit pills or to lace heroin and stimulants, driving a wave of overdoses. Around 2019, ultra-potent nitazenes (e.g. isotonitazene, etonitazene) began appearing in fake “oxycodone” tablets and mixed into heroin, sparking outbreaks—most notably in Estonia and Latvia, with sporadic cases in France, Ireland and the U.K.

The Netherlands serves as both a transit hub and small-scale production site for fentanyl analogs and nitazenes. Although Dutch overdose rates from these synthetics remain lower than in the U.S. or parts of Eastern Europe, interceptions of counterfeit pills and contaminated supplies show the crisis is spreading westward